We Were Liars
E. Lockhart

Candace is a Sinclair. One, indeed, of the Sinclairs. A child of one of three daughters, themselves the children of a rich, rich man, Candace has lived a life of privilege. Never more is that privilege obvious than in the summers that she spends at Beechwood, the Sinclair family island where her grandfather rules from his house on the hill and the children play in a golden world of sun and sea and friendship and wealth. It is heaven and Candace shares it with her cousins, Johnny and Mirren and her friend, Gat. As they grow older, they grow closer, becoming the Liars, an affectionate title that they revel in. Until the summer that Candace is fifteen, a summer where she is found nearly naked and soaking wet and alone with no memory of what has happened and a head injury that leaves her with searing headaches and a transformed life. Two years later she returns to Beechwood, to Johnny, Mirren and Gat, to the three sisters and the old man on the hill and begins to piece together what happened and what it means. We were Liars is an extraordinary book and E. Lockhart’s writing is utterly unique. She has the ability to create incredibly vivid scenes using just snippets of dialogue and semi-sentences. Lockhart also uses fairy tales throughout the book, both familiar and strange, to great effect and on finishing We Were Liars it is hard not to see it as a fairy tale or fable with its own strangeness, its own message and its own terrible reality. It is, quite simply, an extraordinary book – sharp and beautiful, clever and haunting. I devoured it in one, long, breathless gulp and am still thinking about it days after I turned that final page.