We Were Liars - United States

So, I don't usually link to a bunch of resources (other than maybe Goodreads or Kirkus Reviews) but for this book I think having links to some outside resources might be good so I will pepper them throughout this review.

I first read this book

Publication Date: May 12, 2014

Pages: 240

Date Started: July 13, 2018

Date Finished: July 22, 2018

shortly after it was released in 2014, after I received an excerpt in the mail, probably 1-3 chapters. And after quickly reading those few chapters I was hooked. I enjoyed the plot and was I was so surprised by the ending.

Fast forward about 4 years and I recommended for the library book club that I belong to - in large part because I only remembered the ending and how unexpected it was. And how much I enjoyed it. But upon a second reading, I got so much more out if it than I did the first time around!

First, I completely forgot about the allusions to Shakespeare's King Lear. The family patriarch, Harris Sinclair, who built up the family money and whose attitudes permeate the entire fictitious Massachusetts-like island, is King Lear. Carrie, Penny and Bess, the three daughters of King Lear - except unlike the play, all three daughters kowtow to Harris in order to stay in his good graces - and hence, benefit from his fortune. Listen to e. lockhart discuss the writing style and also read  about the King Lear allegory.

And then there are the reflections of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and the star-crossed lovers represented by the character of Gat Patil (representing the Heathcliff character) and Cadence (Cady) Sinclair Eastman our migraine prone protagonist (playing the role of Catherine). Here's a blurb by e. lockhart on why/how she included an homage to Wuthering Heights in the storyline.

And it was only upon this second reading that I came to appreciate how the book was written: the fact that there were a lot of "liars" in the book - Cady, the cousins, the sisters; the sometimes dis-jointed and schizophrenic narrative which reflected the mind workings of Cady; the fairy tale-like stories that were included in the four chapters and finally, the "signs" that e. lockhart cleverly laid out along the way which, only in hindsight, give the reader a clue as to the traumatic event that led to Cady's physical issues.

Here are some reader's group questions to think about. I think my favorite is: What five words would you use to describe this book? Mine would be: clever, multi-faceted, creative, powerful, thought-provoking (ok, maybe that last one is stretching it). What five words would you choose?