Author: E. Lockhart

Synopsis:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

Review:

Have you ever read a book where the style was so beautiful but you could never connect with the characters? Their emotions had absolutely no effect on you? That you were intrigued on figuring out the mystery but didn’t care if it had any ramifications? That everyone else loved it but you’re left thinking what’s wrong with me since I didn’t? Well, that’s where I am. It saddens me that I didn’t fall in love this book. Mostly because I loved the words, the descriptions, and the way the story flowed. E Lockhart’s writing style was unlike anything I have ever read before and I did truly enjoy this type of writing. That said, it doesn’t outweigh that I only enjoyed small parts here and there, that I could never bond with the characters and that even when I figured out what was going on I couldn’t force any emotion out. I have never felt so heartless before.

Every year the Sinclair’s spend their summer on their private island. They are blonde, they are beautiful, and they project a perfect life to the outside world. But inside the family, there is trouble. The sister’s fight, Grandpa tries to control situations and Cadence, Johnny, Mirren and Gat are called the Liars. But even in the midst of drama when they are on the island, the world around them tends to melt away. The Liars’ lives truly don’t exist to one another outside of the island but that doesn’t affect their friendship. So we spend our time learning how the family interacts and learning the ins and outs of what makes Cadence, her cousin Johnny, her cousin Mirren and her friend Gat tick.

I had come here to this island from a house of tears and falsehood
and I saw Gat,
and I saw that rose in his hand,
and in that one moment, with the sunlight from the window shining in on him,
the apples on the kitchen counter,
the smell of wood and ocean in the air
I did call it love.

This book is better left a mystery so I can’t say anything more about what happens except that once I slowly started putting the pieces of the puzzle together and had a good idea as to what happened my interest started waning even more. I am not a skimmer, but I wanted to skim ahead and see if my theory was correct. But I was too afraid that I would miss something important. Something that WOULD pull me back in. Something that WOULD make me feel completely immersed in the story. It never happened. BUT I know many people LOVED this book and it is a very unique read. So, to each is their own.

The four of us Liars, we have always been. We always will be.

I really don’t even know what to say when it comes to this book. In so many ways it had everything I have grown to adore in storytelling-a mysterious, not-as-it-seems story line, characters you never know if you can trust, beautiful, poetic writing, and overall just a vastly different way of delivering inevitable blows: slow, one-two punches to the gut. But with all this being said, there is one truth I can tell you about this story:
Everything I hate in a book, is this book.
Weird, isn’t it? How there can be so many things I love about a book, but more that I hate? I do so love a turn of phrase. 😉

It doesn’t matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love.
So much
in love
that equally desperate measures
must be taken.

See, I have this fatal flaw where I literally feel guilty for rating a book low. Even now as I type out my reasons for rating this thusly, I feel guilty. But one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that when I clicked the 2 stars, it felt right. I have rated a few books that are written poorly with a shitty story-line 2 stars and in other books rated them 3 even though my feelings merited a 2 star rating. I feel that if a book is written well and I just didn’t love, it doesn’t deserve to be so low as a two: But I’ve found the exception. I can’t give this more than a two. I’m known to overrate for books that most likely don’t deserve it and STILL can’t give this more than two stars. The writing was beautiful and spectacular and the story was masterfully woven…but I felt like shit for every minute of it. I felt horrible and sad and depressed and, sure, I was so excited to see what the end was and, yes, I had been right in some of my assumptions, but I feel that while the end was awesome, this is a case where the end doesn’t justify the means.

“Do not accept an evil you can change.”

I wasn’t satisfied. I felt even more deflated, in fact. And more than that, the liars weren’t such bad liars. Whatever the fuck that means. View Spoiler » Why weren’t they bad liars? I mean yes, the whole story was ‘false’ because she is traumatized, but not everyone in this story lied. She only saw visualized lies. So how were they all liars? They deceived, sure. They evaded, mostly. They were a despicable group, yes, but coined the term liars?? I don’t get that, to be honest. They were only trying to protect her from herself. « Hide Spoiler

One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person.

I’m sorry to bring other books into this, but I am just so damn anal about what people think of me and my rating system. Ultimately, I want you, my GR friends, to see my reviews and be like, ‘Yeah, I trust what she’s saying and I can relate-she’s not being a total bitch for no reason.’ And I think if people can put into perspective my crazy method of thinking, it will help them to understand that while this one didn’t work for me, it might possibly work for them. So, here is a comparison where the reviews are mixed and I was entirely fair in my rating-View Spoiler » Allegiant (Divergent 3) « Hide Spoiler is the book I’ll compare. Now, I knew something horrific was coming in the aforementioned book, and, Hell, I was very damn depressed as I read, but I loved and enjoyed the story and the beautiful and vivid writing. It worked for me because, in my mind, the end did justify the means. Like….it was all built up and nobody wanted anything bad to happen, but you just knew deep in your bones something bad was coming, but at the end of it all…..did you or didn’t you enjoy the story? Did you enjoy the ride? Were there also enjoyable parts, or MORE enjoyable than disdainful ones? Did the story as a whole work for you?? It did. And that, my friends, is where WWL lost me. I don’t like to pay for depression-we get enough of that with the news, thank you.

She made me act normal. Because I was. Because I could.

I can’t really talk about this book. There isn’t a way to do so. But what I will say is, I bet this will be a spectacular movie. Honestly. And, most assuredly, I will likely be first in line to go see it. How does this make sense, you ask? Well…lemme explain. Look, it’s awesome that this book was all twisty and suspenseful and we didn’t know what was going on, but reading it was like stabbing my gut with knives at every twist and turn-in a movie, it plays out quicker and I won’t have to read all her inner depressing thoughts and instead it will be played out on-screen much more dramatically and….I don’t know. That hardly makes sense-but to me, it makes all the sense in the world-I’d rather watch the horrid truth that is this book on screen than ever have to lay eyes on this book again. In this case-the movie will be far superior to the book, in my humble opinion. And no, I didn’t rate this so lowly to make a statement-sometimes, you just don’t gel with books. I completely missed the boat on this one.

Maybe, maybe.
If only, if only.

And most importantly, why would I try to explain what this book is about?
It’s all a lie, isn’t it??