We Were Liars

Literary fiction

First published: 2014
Print length: 227 pagesDelacorte Press, 2014

Description

Cadence Sinclair belongs to a wealthy Scots-American family that spends each summer on its private island, preserving an image of privilege despite resentments over money, inheritance, and prejudice. After a serious injury leaves her with migraines and large gaps in her memory, Cadence returns seeking answers about the summer she cannot remember. Her closest companions—cousins Johnny and Mirren, and Gat, the boy she loves—call themselves the Liars, yet none will explain what happened. As Cadence reconstructs fragments of the past, the family’s polished traditions give way to conflicts over dependence, belonging, and who will inherit its wealth. The novel turns her damaged memory into a tense inquiry about love, secrecy, and the consequences of choices made inside a closed world.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Fragmentary · Lyrical · Spare

Pace

Variable

Tone

Melancholic · Suspenseful · Tense · Unsettling

Structure

Fragmented · Nonlinear

Focus

Character · Mystery · Relationships

Emotional intensity

5 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

FamilyLoveMemoryRace and racismTraumaWealth

About E. Lockhart

E. Lockhart is the pen name Emily Jenkins uses for young adult fiction. Her career also includes children’s picture books and adult fiction. Her novels range from the four-book Ruby Oliver series to the psychological family mysteries We Were Liars and Family of Liars. Lockhart repeatedly treats social belonging as a problem of narration: characters preserve appearances, revise painful events, and discover how much private knowledge is hidden by polished group stories. In We Were Liars, Cadence Sinclair’s migraines and missing memories make the plot an investigation conducted through spare, lyrical fragments. The private-island setting narrows the action around money, inheritance, prejudice, and the loyalties of four close companions. Family of Liars returns to the Sinclairs through another heiress’s retrospective account. Its more direct but still atmospheric prose follows grief, addiction, rivalry, and desire as they become secrets guarded in the family name. Lockhart’s suspense grows from withheld explanation, unstable memory, and the gradual reordering of what a narrator has already disclosed.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Delacorte Press
Language: English
ISBN: 9780385741262

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