We Were Liars Review

This week's novel is We Were Liars, contemporary YA by E. Lockhart.

Two years ago, Cadence was in an accident on her family's private island, where they vacation every summer.  The accident left her with debilitating migraines and brain damage.  But this summer, she's back on the island with her tight-knit cousins (called "the liars"), determined to figure out what caused her accident.

I loved the writing in this.  Every so often, there would be carriage returns, turning the prose into verse with a lovely cadence.  Then there would be bits like this:

He had hired moving vans already.  He'd rented a house, too.  My father put a last suitcase into the backseat of the Mercedes (he was leaving Mummy with only the Saab), and started the engine.
Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest.  I was standing on the lawn and I fell.  The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed.  Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.
It tasted like salt and failure.  The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps to the porch.  My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.
Mummy snapped.  She said to get hold of myself.
Be normal, now, she said.  Right now, she said.
Because you are.  Because you can be.

Wow!

But now comes the tricky part.  Aside from its lovely language, (and "aww, you're so rich and privileged, that's so hard for you *pouty face*") I'm not sure how to talk about this book, because I think the summary on Goodreads did me a horrible disservice.  It's hard to talk about this disservice without doing the same disservice to you, so I'm going to put my rant behind a cut and tell you that if you're interested in this book, you should go read it without Goodreads ruining it for you.

Next week: The Brides of Rollrock Island, depressing selkie fantasy by Margo Lanagan


So.

The blurb on Goodreads ends with, "Read it.  And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE."  Clearly, there's a twist at the end.  And it must be a doozy.  Otherwise, why would anyone ask you how it ends?

But my Kindle told me I was 31% of the way through the book when I guessed the twist, which is really early.  So early, in fact, that I spent the rest of the book second guessing myself.  Am I reading into all these situations wrong?  Am I supposed to have guessed this, and it's just something the reader knows and the character doesn't?  The internet seems to think that the twist is shocking, so...maybe the twist is that there isn't a twist?

I think the uncertainty of what I was supposed to know took the fun out of it.  I found myself skimming a lot of the cheeky dialogue (which would have been quality dialogue) and thinking, "Well this scene is going to end up not mattering."  And then I thought, "Wait.  What if I'm wrong?  I will have ignored all these bits as irrelevant, and this dialogue is nice and cheeky. Should I reread the last two pages?  Should I--Oh no."  

Like a bad anxiety dream.  

...I am such a weirdo.  No one else is going to have this problem with this book.

Anyway I do think this is the fault of the summary, because if they hadn't made such a big deal out of the twist, I wouldn't have been looking for clues.  I wouldn't have raised my expectations too high for how outrageous the twist would be.

I think I still would have guessed pretty early, but I don't think I would have been as conflicted reading it.  And when the twist was revealed, I might have been surprised or emotional, instead of relieved and a bit proud of myself because I'd guessed right.  I'm sure Lockhart doesn't want to know that when that twist was revealed, I punched the air and went, "damned straight!"  That is an inappropriate response.