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We Were Liars Kindle Edition
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Don't miss the eagerly anticipated prequel, Family of Liars.
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.
Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.
"Thrilling, beautiful, and blisteringly smart, We Were Liars is utterly unforgettable." —John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDelacorte Press
- Publication dateMay 13, 2014
- Reading age18 years and up
- Grade level7 - 9
- File size16801 KB
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From the Publisher

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Family of Liars | We Were Liars | Genuine Fraud | Again Again | |
More impossible to put down reads from E. Lockhart! | Another Summer. Another Generation. The eagerly anticipated prequel to WE WERE LIARS! | A modern, sophisticated suspense novel set during the summer off the coast of Massachusetts. | A mind-bending thriller told in reverse. | An inventive and romantic story about human connection, forgiveness, self-discovery, and possibility. |
Editorial Reviews
Review
"You’re going to want to remember the title.Liars details the summers of a girl who harbors a dark secret, and delivers a satisfying, but shocking twist ending." —Breia Brissey, Entertainment Weekly
"This mindblowing YA thriller from E. Lockhart will make you glad you're the 99 percent...And that's about all we can tell you when it comes to the story of 'We Were Liars,' the book by E. Lockhart that everyone will be reading, and re-reading, this summer. It's twisty, it's mysterious, and it's got a surprise ending that'll knock your socks off."
—Kat Rosenfield, MTV News
"Surprising, thrilling, and beautifully executed in spare, precise, and lyrical prose, Lockhart spins a tragic family drama, the roots of which go back generations. And the ending? Shhhh. Not telling. (But it’s a doozy)...This is poised to be big." —Booklist, starred review
"Lockhart has created a mystery with an ending most readers won’t see coming, one so horrific it will prompt some to return immediately to page one to figure out how they missed it. At the center of it is a girl who learns the hardest way of all what family means, and what it means to lose the one that really mattered to you." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Riveting, brutal and beautifully told." —Kirkus, starred review
"The ending is a stunner that will haunt readers for a long time to come." —School Library Journal, starred review
"A taut psychological mystery marked by an air of uneasy disorientation...The ultimate reveal is shocking both for its tragedy and for the how-could-I-have-not-suspected-that? feeling it leaves us with. But we didn’t, which is Lockhart’s commendable triumph." —The Horn Book, starred review
“This is a love story as much as it is a psychological mystery…Astonishing." —Shelf Awareness, starred review
“[a] haunting, sophisticated mystery...a novel so twisty and well-told that it will appeal to older readers as well as to adolescents.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Irresistible premise for this ticking time bomb of a novel.” —The New York Times Book Review
"A Lockhart YA is always a treat and this is no exception...The glimpse we get into a life of privilege, a lifestyle most of us can only imagine, is insightful and thrilling. The ending will shock the mose jaded of readers, we promise!" —RT Book Reviews
"There's trouble in paradise at the opening of National Book Award finalist and Printz honoree E. Lockhart's shattering yet ultimately hopeful YA novel . . . and neither family nor reader will ever be the same." —Library Journal
"It's a nearly perfect story, and it's utterly absorbing." —Bustle, A YA Best Book of the Year
"No book on this summer's reading list will have readers immobilized in their hammocks more than E. Lockhart's We Were Liars..... This book has that surprise quality--like Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity--that makes readers scramble back through hungrily devoured chapters and wonder in admiration: Could I have seen this coming? Did I miss any clues?" —Newsday
"Like a shard of glass, WE WERE LIARS glitters and shines, then cuts deep. E. Lockhart has truly outdone herself with this masterful, darkly mesmerizing portrait of a fractured family ruined by the excess of wealth. Humming with rich descriptions and razor-sharp intelligence, the story of Cadence Sinclair Eastman will both inspire and haunt readers for years to come." —Sarah Pitre, Forever Young Adult
"Perception often is not reality -- and it certainly is not in WE WERE LIARS. This is a look at what “a perfect world” looks like on the inside and how it unravels once one of the players sees it for what it is. Pitch perfect in both plotting and character development."
—Carol Fitzgerald, Book Reporter
"The must-read contemporary novel so far this year is definitely E. Lockhart’s stellar We Were Liars, a rich, stunning summer mystery with a sharp twist that will leaving you dying to talk about the book with a pal or ten." —Sonia Charaipotra, Parade
"A haunting tale about how families live within their own mythologies. Sad, wonderful, and real." —Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies and Leviathan
"I've fallen in love with every E. Lockhart book I've ever read (and I've read them all), but We Were Liars blows them all out of the water. Dark, gripping, heartrending, and terrifyingly smart, this book grabs you from the first page--and will never let go." — Robin Wasserman, author of The Waking Dark
"Spectacular." —Lauren Myracle, author of Shine, The Infinite Moment of Us, and TTYL
"A haunting, brilliant, beautiful book. This is E. Lockhart at her mind-blowing best." — Sarah Mlynowski, author of Don't Even Think About It and Gimme a Call
"Stunningly sharp. . . . will sear itself into your memory." —Christian Science Monitor
"A haunting psychological thriller." —The Guardian
"The mystery driving the plot is a shocking punch in the face that will stay with you long after you finish." —Hypable Online Hypable-Weekend Reading
“There’s no preparing for the shocker of an ending.”
—SLJ
"We Were Liars is amazing. I felt run over by it . . . .Emily has done something incredible here. —Paul O. Zelinsky
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Young Adult Book of the Month, May 2014: E. Lockhart’s novel, We Were Liars, is clever, alluring, and wildly addictive. Each summer the wealthy, seemingly perfect, members of the Sinclair family gather on their private island. We Were Liars is the story of those annual reunions; in particular what happened during a summer that protagonist Cadence is unable to remember. Prejudice, greed, and shifting patriarchal favoritism among the three adult sisters contrasts with the camaraderie and worldview of the teenage cousins and their dear friend Gat. Lazy days of sticky lemonades on the roof and marathon Scrabble games give way to twisty suspense, true love, and good intentions gone horribly wrong. We Were Liars is a story that begs to be read in one sitting. --Seira Wilson
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.From School Library Journal
About the Author
E. Lockhart wrote the New York Times bestseller We Were Liars and the upcoming Genuine Fraud, a psychological thriller. Her other books include Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and the Ruby Oliver Quartet, which includes The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, The Treasure Map of Boys, and Real Live Boyfriends. Visit her online at emilylockhart.com, and follow her on Twitter at @elockhart.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
No one is a criminal.
No one is an addict.
No one is a failure.
The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome. We are old-money Democrats. Our smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive.
It doesn't matter if divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle. It doesn't matter if trust-fund money is running out; if credit card bills go unpaid on the kitchen counter. It doesn't matter if there's a cluster of pill bottles on the bedside table.
It doesn't matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love.
So much
in love
that equally desperate measures
must be taken.
We are Sinclairs.
No one is needy.
No one is wrong.
We live, at least in the summertime, on a private island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Perhaps that is all you need to know. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
From Booklist
Product details
- ASIN : B00FPOSDGY
- Publisher : Delacorte Press (May 13, 2014)
- Publication date : May 13, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 16801 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 242 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #17,782 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

I am the author of We Were Liars, Genuine Fraud, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and a number of other novels. www.emilylockhart.com
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The Sinclairs had a perfect little family that vacation on a perfect little beach, Beechwood, during the summer. They were athletic, beautiful, and rich. They walked in straight lines and held sophisticated discussions around the dinner table. They were the definition of quintessential. At least, they used to be. But everything changes one summer when Cady, Gat, Mirren and Johnny craft a foolish plan. Now, two years later, Cady is back at Beachwood for only four weeks. Four weeks to go through the twisting chaos of her memory and find out how consequential her actions really were. But after Cady finds out the truth, she finds that it was more beneficial to her fragile state of mind to be left in the dark. Friendship and family are important, but they are also fragile. What happened that summer? With her perfect family crumbling down around her, will Cady be able to overcome and accept what she did?
The way Cady, Gat, Mirren, and Johnny are portrayed is vital to the success of the book. As you read, each personality floats out of the pages and can be seen as a reality. The reader can easily relate to the main characters, their emotions, relationships with each other, and struggles they go through. There are two main characters that especially pop out at you. The first one is Gat who was passionate, political, and ambitious, brings perspective, intelligence, and diversity to the island, “Not everyone has private islands. Some people work on them. Some work in factories. Some don’t have work. Some don’t have food” (Fantasy Island by Meg Rosoff). Gat is aware of everything going around him and wants to make a difference. He never lets anyone forget how bad the world sometimes really is, “You don’t know my bedroom with the window onto the airshaft…...You only know me on this island, where everyone’s rich except me and the staff. Where everyone is white except me, Ginny [the housekeeper], and Paulo [the gardener]” (103). He doesn't want to be perfect and put on fake smiles at dinner. Gat pops out of the book because of how different he is. Gat wasn’t a Sinclair. He wasn’t blond and rich. In fact, he was the complete opposite of a typical Sinclair and while some of the family couldn’t stand him, Cady fell in love with him.With Gat in the picture, Cady views the world differently. In my opinion, I think that Cady wouldn’t have made those mistakes and gotten into her accident if it hadn’t been for the way Gat influenced her and convinced her to take more chances without fully thinking through them.
Not only are the characters important to the success of We Were Liars, but the plot is as well. Each good story must contain a strong, intriguing plot. There must be suspense, diction, and conflict. The plot E. Lockhart creates with her surprise ending will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page. When you start reading We Were Liars, the reader discovers that the main character, Cady, was in an accident. She’s been told that she hit her head while swimming. However, the reader and Cady, who are both limited to the information of what actually happened, start to question the sequence of events from the night of her accident, “I make a separate page for the accident itself…I must have gone swimming on the tiny beach alone. I hit my head on a rock….I was diagnosed with hypothermia, respiratory problems, and a brain injury…Did I really have a head injury from the swim, or did something else happen?...Was I the victim of some crime?” (77). Cady starts wondering about what really happened, and no one will help her remember, “Johnny stares at me oddly. ‘You don’t remember?’ ‘Her memory is messed up Johnny!’ yells Mirren……..No, no, shut up right now,’ Mirren barks……..’This is important! How can you not pay attention to this stuff?’ Mirren looks like she might cry” (94). Cady and the reader are limited to the information of the accident but discover that Cady’s mind conjured visions of Mirren, Johnny, and Gat to protect her from what actually happened that night. As the conclusion of the book comes, suspense builds and the ending is unforeseen.
Your actions are important. Consider the consequences of what you’re doing before doing them. If Cady had done this, the place in her heart meant for family and love would not feel so empty. E. Lockhart uses Cady’s choices to make We Were Liars an unpredictable roller coaster from start to finish. I would recommend this book to someone who loves suspense action, and love.
This is not a read it in a day book. No, I did not want to put it down! I did want to savor it to give it the time that it deserves.
After reading this novel, I understood the importance of coming to a conclusion without any outside influences for yourself. This novel began with vivid imagery, that took my breath away in a audible gasp. I loved the way the protagonist described her father's leaving as him grabbing a shotgun and shooting her squarely in the chest and making her heart fall through the hole it had created. I couldn't stop reading and rereading that scene. The visceral effect did what was intended and the author is truly out of this world.
The poetic way the prose was delivered swept me away like I had caught the words in a waltz, they fell onto my ears and heart and I became one with the character(s), understanding their motives and feeling their pain.
The plot seemed a little flat to me at first but when everything was explained, I had a little ohhhh moment, where everything slot together perfectly. I had guessed a fraction of the big mystery, but everything came together in a way that cause indescribable pain for me who had taken on so much of the characters.
The story speaks to perception, how our views are always clouded, by our preconceived notions and our environment, but when the veil is lifted, the truth is unbelievable so we're better off not believing...
Top reviews from other countries


What works : Great, unusual wrtiing techniques and a genuine twist that sheds light on what you’ve already read.
What doesn’t : As narrator, Cadence is passive to a frustrating extent. The build-up to the big reveal has a few too many dull periods, forcing the narrator’s penchant for the dramatic to compensate.
Cadence Sinclair (Cady) comes from a rich, well-to-do family. So well-to-do, in fact, that they have the luxury of vacationing on their own priavte island every summer. It is this island, Beechwood, that is the heart of Cady’s narrative; the summers she spent there with her childhood companions. The inseperable foursome; Cady, Johnny, Mirren and Gat – affectionately termed ‘the Liars’ – treasure their Beechwood idyll, but when Cady has a mysterious accident during ‘summer fifteen’, the four become divided as Cady searches for the truth.
Lockhart’s clever techniques (as Cady herself declares, ‘I like a twist of meaning’) give vivid representation to ‘the Liars’ as Cady simultaneously struggles with discovering the reality of what has happened to her, the conflicts within her family and the conflicts within herself. ‘The Liars’ – freespirited dreamers – are a contrast with the rest of the Sinclair family -ignorant and repressed. Through these relationships, Lockhart explores social commentary on class, family hierarchy and expectations, while (very) slowly building suspense, and the narrative is as much about the trials of the Sinclairs as it is about Cady’s quest.
Lockhart’s aim to enhance the narrative by making Cady herself a writer, describing her feelings in overly dramatic imagery, often feels like filler while the story takes significant time to develop. However, Cady`s creative reimaginings of fairytales reflect the narrative while dealing with her inner turmoil – the matters she (frustratingly) won’t confront in reality. Cady passivity, given the gravity of the situation, is neither believable, nor likeable.
Though Cady’s shortcomings make her hard to relate to and detract from the reality of the narrative, Lockhart’s various writing styles are strong and endearing, making the novel an overall enjoyable read. The big reveal evoked an audible response while reading – a sure sign of a shocking twist – and retrospectively strengthens the narrative as a whole. Lockart has impressively painted an evocative picture of a family portrait being ripped to pieces alongside a tale of suspense.

Although the story was at first intriguing, I found that I quickly became bored of the storyline and uninterested in what was happening due to the repetitiveness of the plot. The actual storyline in We Were Liars didn’t make a lot of sense and I found that overall it was missing the progression of a grounded and coherent plot line. While Lockhart’s writing was emotive and colourful, the story was overall underwhelming, monotonous and dull. While I did enjoy the little ‘fairytales’ about the King and Princesses that Lockhart threw in randomly throughout the book, and found that the symmetry between them and the actual story made for an interesting deduction for the audience to ‘read between the lines,’ which was where my enthusiasm for this book ended.
On a more positive note, the twist at the end of this novel was shocking, heart-breaking and absolutely unpredictable. I had no idea that Lockhart would choose to do what she did, and thought that this choice did allow for some sense of normality and understanding in the book. There were a lot of intricate character relationships portrayed, involving love, trust (or a lack of it) and a strong and resilient family bond, that would not be broken no matter how much they seemed to be falling apart. Cadence’s ‘madness’ was a point of interest in the book; Lockhart managed to subtly use moments such as the endless pills she was taking and her desire to own nothing material to successfully portray this. However I think if she wanted to make this emotive or profound she would need to emphasise the ‘madness’ even more.
One character who I found intriguing was Gat. He was the obvious choice for Cadence, but I never felt satisfied with the relationship between Cadence and Gat. I enjoyed their love for each other, and thought that Cadence’s lust for someone she could not have would be very relatable for a lot of readers. However I found that Gat’s hostility towards her was frustrating and would have preferred if Lockhart kept to a more ‘Romeo and Juliet’ storyline, keeping their forbidden love alive. In the end I think if I were to describe the book in one word it would be messy.

Not your typical straightforward YA novel, though it has all the necessary ingredients like a teenage crush on a dark handsome outsider in the family, her volatile relationships with her single mother, her estranged father, and her aunts, and her hoary and extremely patriarchal grandfather, who’s a little of a tyrant like King Lear with her 3 fawning daughters dependent on his goodwill.
Lockhart’s writing is crisp and sharp, and the characterisation refreshingly rich and layered, where even the minor characters like each of Cady’s younger cousins, whom the older kids call the Littles, are distinct and unique. The dialogue is also authentic, and there are quite a few quotable lines that bear committing to memory, like “Silence is a protective coating over pain”, a warning Cady’s mom gives her not to bring up distressing memories when Grandma Tipper dies and leaves Grandpa Harris a broken shell of a man, and Mirren, Cady’s cousin’s mantra, “Be a little kinder than you have to”, that proves to be a life source of sorts for Cady.
The novel is filled with secrets and lies, and unspoken griefs, and the shock of the twist when it comes, does take one’s breath away. Definitely a credible author, whose work I would want to check out in the near future.

Despite guessing the plot twist mid-way through, it didn't take away from my overall reading experience as I felt excited to carry on and see if I was right.
Due to some of the upsetting natures in this book, I'd recommend this book for teens 15+ as I think they'd be able to understand the meanings more.