My rating: 4 of 5 stars
There's a ridiculous amount of feels and tears right now. Lots of angst.
We Were Liars is about Cadence Sinclair Easton, one of THE Sinclairs. The clan is tall, square chinned, and dripping old money. They are perfect, happy, and always right. At least, this is what Cadence tells us in the first chapter.Actually, very little is how it seems as first. Cadence is most definitely an unreliable narrator. She has selective amnesia and is on high doses of pain killers thanks to an accident that no one wants to talk about.
In a lot of ways, I felt sorry for poor little rich Cadence with her God complex grandfather and WASP-y mother. Especially when I read things like this:
It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps to the porch.
She made me act normal. Because I was. Because I could. She told me to breathe and sit up.And I did what she asked. Again.”“Don’t cause distress, she said. Don’t remind people of a loss. “Do you understand, Cady? Silence is a protective coating over pain.
There’s nothing in our whole house that says he ever lived with us, except me. Why are you allowed to erase my father and I’m not allowed to—”“Erase yourself?” Mummy says.
But, then we get glimpses of how Cadence was before the mysterious accident. How she behaves with those closest to her, cousins Johnny and Mirrin, and love interest, Gat. She was a bit of a bitch, oblivious to those 'beneath' her.
We, the reader, eventually learn about the mysterious accident, which caused a sea of tears (from me). The writing was beautiful, the plot interesting, the characters varied and multifaceted. I was very, very impressed. Would I read it again? Probably not, but I enjoyed the prose and would recommend it to others.