We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Aug. 3rd, 2014 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
We were liars.
We are beautiful and privileged.
We are cracked and broken.
A tale of love and romance.
A tale of tragedy.
Which are lies?
Which is truth?
You decide.
18-year-old Cadence ‘Cady’ Sinclair Eastman belongs to the wealthy and powerful Sinclair family. Three years ago she was staying on Beechwood (a private island just off the Massachusetts coast that belongs to her grandparents) with her cousins Johnny and Mirren and Johnny’s friend, Gatwick ‘Gat’ Patil. Cady had an accident on the beach and now she suffers from migraines and memory loss. She hasn’t been back to Beechwood since.
Until now.
As heiress to the Sinclair wealth, she has to accompany her mum to see her grandfather, who’s just finished building a new house on the island. Reunited with her cousins and Gat (who she’s in love with), she’s hoping to learn what happened to her that night but no one seems keen to tell her. As she and Gat rekindle their romance, she watches her mum and two aunts try to secure their inheritance and slowly begins to regain her memories of that night …
E. Lockhart’s literary YA novel nods at KING LEAR and THE GREAT GATSBY in a character study about wealth and privilege and the bubbles it can create for those born into it. I really enjoyed the literary allusions, especially as Lockhart ties them in to the way Cady’s grandfather manipulates his three daughters but Cady’s first person narration is overwritten and overly dramatic at times (particularly her constant references to bleeding) and I didn’t believe in her romance with the idealistic Gat. The central problem with the book though is that you’re being asked to empathise with essentially a poor, little rich girl who’s utterly blind to the problems of others in the world and who can’t even remember the names of her servants. I personally found that a hard sell. In addition, when the big reveal comes as to what happened to Cady, it feels underwhelming and without wishing to go into spoilers, it reinforced my total lack of sympathy for her situation. Ultimately, I can see why this has been so critically well received, but it ultimately wasn’t my thing.
Cady’s a spoilt, self-pitying and selfish character who thinks herself above her grandfather’s games but nonetheless allows herself to be used as a pawn in them. However I did enjoy the relationship between the bickering aunts and their father and the consequences this has for everyone else and the skill of those scenes mean that I’d definitely read Lockhart’s other work.
The Verdict:
E. Lockhart’s literary YA novel nods at KING LEAR and THE GREAT GATSBY in a character study about wealth and privilege and the bubbles it can create for those born into it. I really enjoyed the literary allusions, especially as Lockhart ties them in to the way Cady’s grandfather manipulates his three daughters but Cady’s first person narration is overwritten and overly dramatic at times (particularly her constant references to bleeding) and I didn’t believe in her romance with the idealistic Gat. The central problem with the book though is that you’re being asked to empathise with essentially a poor, little rich girl who’s utterly blind to the problems of others in the world and who can’t even remember the names of her servants. I personally found that a hard sell. In addition, when the big reveal comes as to what happened to Cady, it feels underwhelming and without wishing to go into spoilers, it reinforced my total lack of sympathy for her situation. Ultimately, I can see why this has been so critically well received, but it ultimately wasn’t my thing.
We are beautiful and privileged.
We are cracked and broken.
A tale of love and romance.
A tale of tragedy.
Which are lies?
Which is truth?
You decide.
18-year-old Cadence ‘Cady’ Sinclair Eastman belongs to the wealthy and powerful Sinclair family. Three years ago she was staying on Beechwood (a private island just off the Massachusetts coast that belongs to her grandparents) with her cousins Johnny and Mirren and Johnny’s friend, Gatwick ‘Gat’ Patil. Cady had an accident on the beach and now she suffers from migraines and memory loss. She hasn’t been back to Beechwood since.
Until now.
As heiress to the Sinclair wealth, she has to accompany her mum to see her grandfather, who’s just finished building a new house on the island. Reunited with her cousins and Gat (who she’s in love with), she’s hoping to learn what happened to her that night but no one seems keen to tell her. As she and Gat rekindle their romance, she watches her mum and two aunts try to secure their inheritance and slowly begins to regain her memories of that night …
E. Lockhart’s literary YA novel nods at KING LEAR and THE GREAT GATSBY in a character study about wealth and privilege and the bubbles it can create for those born into it. I really enjoyed the literary allusions, especially as Lockhart ties them in to the way Cady’s grandfather manipulates his three daughters but Cady’s first person narration is overwritten and overly dramatic at times (particularly her constant references to bleeding) and I didn’t believe in her romance with the idealistic Gat. The central problem with the book though is that you’re being asked to empathise with essentially a poor, little rich girl who’s utterly blind to the problems of others in the world and who can’t even remember the names of her servants. I personally found that a hard sell. In addition, when the big reveal comes as to what happened to Cady, it feels underwhelming and without wishing to go into spoilers, it reinforced my total lack of sympathy for her situation. Ultimately, I can see why this has been so critically well received, but it ultimately wasn’t my thing.
Cady’s a spoilt, self-pitying and selfish character who thinks herself above her grandfather’s games but nonetheless allows herself to be used as a pawn in them. However I did enjoy the relationship between the bickering aunts and their father and the consequences this has for everyone else and the skill of those scenes mean that I’d definitely read Lockhart’s other work.
The Verdict:
E. Lockhart’s literary YA novel nods at KING LEAR and THE GREAT GATSBY in a character study about wealth and privilege and the bubbles it can create for those born into it. I really enjoyed the literary allusions, especially as Lockhart ties them in to the way Cady’s grandfather manipulates his three daughters but Cady’s first person narration is overwritten and overly dramatic at times (particularly her constant references to bleeding) and I didn’t believe in her romance with the idealistic Gat. The central problem with the book though is that you’re being asked to empathise with essentially a poor, little rich girl who’s utterly blind to the problems of others in the world and who can’t even remember the names of her servants. I personally found that a hard sell. In addition, when the big reveal comes as to what happened to Cady, it feels underwhelming and without wishing to go into spoilers, it reinforced my total lack of sympathy for her situation. Ultimately, I can see why this has been so critically well received, but it ultimately wasn’t my thing.
