We Were Liars

Lockhart, E. (2014). We were liars. New York: Delacorte.

Cadence belongs to the Sinclair family.  They are athletic, beautiful and rich.  They spend their summers on their own private island.  Penny, Bess, and Carrie are Cadence’s grandfather’s daughters, they scheme to be the family’s heir.  They want their children to be like them.  But Cadence, Mirren, Johnny and family friend, Gat who are called the Liars see past that. They are the best of friends and love life.  It all changes on the summer fifteen when a mysterious tragedy occurred.  Cadence’s life completely changes.  She quits sports, starts failing in school and she has lost contact with the Liars.  Cadence tries to contact the Liars but they shelter her.  On summer seventeen, Cadence who suffers from debilitating headaches wants to remember what happened on that fifteenth summer so her mother allows her to return to the island.  She slowly starts to remember what happened with the help of the Liars who were also there on the island with her to help Cadence remember. The Liars saw that money was pulling the family apart so they came up with a plan to set fire to their grandfather’s house.  Johnny, Mirren, and Gat get trapped in the house and are unable to escape the fire.  It is then that Cadence remembers that she was the only one who survived the fire.  That is when she realizes that she has been spending the summer with ghosts.  The Liars ask if they could leave and she lets them go. 

I did not expect it to end the way that it did but I enjoyed the twist.  This story was about how greed can destroy one’s life in an instant.  This is dark modern realistic fiction novel.  There are many people who suffer brain injuries and cannot remember what happened because their brain has chosen to handle the grief or the accident in a certain way.  Cadence grieved for the Liars and when she remembered it was heart-breaking but it was also comforting because she was able to receive it from them.  

Chance, R. (2014). Young adult literature in action: A librarian's guide. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.