We Were Liars

Plot

The book begins with a story told by Cadence Sinclair, the book's protagonist. She recalls her life and her summers, before Summer Fifteen, that she spent on a private island owned by her grandparents. The island, near Martha's Vineyard, has four houses—a large estate belonging to her grandparents and one house for each of their three daughters. She also talks about how she grew to know an Indian boy named Gat and how she fell deeply in love with him.

In Summer Fifteen (as in the age Cadence is during the summer spent on the island) they have a relationship, but they reach a rocky road when the accident happens. Cadence is found seriously injured in the water, near the beach. She suffers migraines since then and is not able to remember much of Summer Fifteen except details of her accident. Even with this information, her mother refuses to disclose what happened in Summer Fifteen. Because of the accident, Cadence is held back one year and retakes her classes, but in constant pain and as a significantly different person.

In Summer Sixteen, Cadence is told by her mother that she will be travelling Europe with her father. Despite resisting, Cadence goes on the trip; next Summer, she returns to the island.

When she does return, just about everything on the island is different. Everyone, including the Liars, (the cousins and good friends of Cadence who also go to the island) acts nervously and secretively around Cadence; and one of the houses on the island is remodeled to a modern, sleeker aesthetic. Over time, Cadence remembers more and more about Summer Fifteen and her relationship with Gat. Over time, Cadence begins to regain memories of Summer Fifteen, and she slowly remembers that her mother and aunts were arguing over their inheritance. She also remembers her grandfather's racism towards Gat and Gat's uncle Ed—recalling her Grandfather's subtle warning after he caught Gat and Cadence kissing, and after we learn that her aunt was told she would lose her inheritance if she married Ed.

Towards the end of the book, Cadence remembers what happened during Summer Fifteen. After drinking wine, the Liars drunkenly plan to stop their families from tearing each other apart by burning down their grandfather's house using gasoline from the boat house. The plan was to soak a number of objects around the house in gasoline, soak the second floor in gasoline, light the second floor on fire using paper towels, and then light the first floor on fire. However, the plan quickly goes awry as Cadence lights the living room on fire first. This traps and kills the family dogs, and the Liars. Suffering from burns gained from escaping the fire, Cadence dives into the water in her underwear, explaining why she was in the water earlier in the book. Upon this realization, she quickly realizes that the Liars were "ghosts", formed out of Cadence's guilt. She comes to terms with the Liars one-by-one and with Gat. The book ends with Cadence significantly better than she was after her injuries sustained Summer Fifteen.

Pre-publication

E. Lockhart wrote We Were Liars with knowledge of the ending. She was particularly inspired by the twist endings in Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, because the first twist still kept the reader interested, as well as Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me which contained a lot of small details that fell into place at the end. The novel is written in five acts, though pieces of each were rearranged, particularly the middle three. Lockhart wrote the novel on the writing software Scrivener which made it easy to rearrange segments of text. She changed the structure of the ending shortly before the advance reader copy, based on suggestions from young adult author John Green.

As a child, Lockhart was "captivated" by fairy tale collections her mother had and incorporated a fairy tale feel to We Were Liars; she stated, "Fairy tales have been a preoccupation of mine for a very long time, and for a long time I wanted to write a contemporary story with a fairy-tale structure so I could unpack some of what I had spent so much time thinking about." The relationship between the Liars was inspired by Lockhart's "fantasy" of having close friends growing up, but also an attempt to "unpack" potential consequences of the bond. The character of Gat, who is part of the Liars but also an outsider to the family, was drawn from Lockhart's experience as a scholarship student at private schools, as well as Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. Lockhart also stated that some individuals close to her experience migraines and she was interested in exploring how pain affects one's personality and perception of the world.

The publisher hoped that the novel would have a large crossover appeal to adult readers, because it had "teens who must interact with imperfect adults and imperfect adults who are important to the entire dynamic of the plot." To promote We Were Liars without giving too much of the plot away, a blog on Tumblr was created, focusing on the aesthetic of the Sinclair's island with quotes from the book. The promotional material urged readers to "just lie" if they were asked about the ending.

Themes

Los Angeles Times writer Amy Benfer described that thematically, We Were Liars was "a classic story of decaying aristocracy and the way that privilege can often hamstring more than help."

Release and reception

We Were Liars debuted at #6 on the New York Times Bestseller List in the young adult category. From June 1 to September 7, it spent 13 weeks on the top ten. Goodreads determined that it was the most-searched standalone title of 2014 on the website, leading them to declare it a possibility for the year's "it" book. Bustle affirmed this declaration, believing that the novel was "compulsively readable," had a "meaningful" plot, and was frequently talked about.

We Were Liars received mostly positive reviews from critics. Kirkus Reviews awarded We Were Liars a starred review, stating that it was "riveting, brutal and beautifully told." The review particularly praised Lockhart's humanizing of the Sinclairs. Publishers Weekly also wrote a starred review, referring to Lockhart's depiction of the family as "astute." School Library Journal reviewer Karyn Silverman said that Cadence's voice was the highlight of the novel, but also praised the "smart" writing in regards to plotting and complex characters. The publication also listed it among their "Best Books of 2014." Katrina Hedeen of The Horn Book Magazine also gave a starred review, describing it as an "intriguing, atmospheric story" with a "taut psychological mystery" and unexpected twist. The Wall Street Journal also gave a positive review, noting the crossover appeal to adults and praising Cadence as an unreliable narrator.

Josh Lacey of The Guardian described the novel as "cunning" and "clever", calling the twist ending "nastier and more shocking than anything I had imagined." The Daily Telegraph's Martin Chilton gave the book four out of five stars, calling it "a mysterious and addictive treat" with a twist that is "dramatic and severe." Meg Rosoff, writing for The New York Times, felt that the execution "fell oddly flat"; she enjoyed the "snappy characterizations" of the privileged family, but felt that overall the novel was not able to fully delve into the personalities of the characters. In regards to the ending, however, she wrote that "Lockhart just about manages to pull it off, thanks to the freshness of the writing and the razor-sharp metaphor amnesia provides for the Sinclair family habit of denial."

We Were Liars was listed among the best young adult books of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and The Wall Street Journal. It also made the list of ALA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults for 2015, and was the only young adult novel listed in Amazon's Best 20 Books of the Year. It was also a finalist in the book of the year category for the Teen Choice Book Awards, and won the Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction.