From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes a new fantasy series reimagining the Arthurian legend, set in the magical world of Camelot.

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution--send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere's real name--and her true identity--is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old--including Arthur's own family--demand things continue as they have been, and the new--those drawn by the dream of Camelot--fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur's knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.

Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?

I received a free copy from the publisher via Netgalley and chose to leave a voluntary review. Thank you!*

DNFed at 50%

I was super excited when I received this book from Netgalley, sadly this book was not for me. I normally really like her books and her retellings but this was just fell short for me. It just didn’t hold my interest at all and I finally DNFed it at around 50%. For one it just felt like the story or Guinevere, who by the way bot really Guinevere (not a spoiler it states it right in the beginning) ll over the place, we bounce around a lot in the story.  It also was a bit on the slow site and it felt like never ending.

I also had a hard time connecting with the characters, Arthur who was not there a lot but mentioned and talked about I liked but again it was hard for me to connect to him if he is hardly there. Guinevere seemed lost herself and all over the place with no real direction so I had a even harder time to connect to her.

Of course there were another people but most just were meh….. I had some thoughts about what is about to come and will be a plot twist so I asked a friend who read it all how it ends and such. But I was not surprised and basically everything I thought would happen did happen.

Overall, meh book for me. I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn’t get into it this time around. I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will love it.

I rate it 2 ★

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This book started interesting me, of course, when the movie came out. I usually staunchly refuse to see any book-based movies before I read the book, but my parents broke me down when they marketed going to the movies as a “family event,” so I didn’t get to reading it beforehand, which meant it got pushed way down my to-read list. When the Pokemon Go challenge came up and had a hyped-up book category, I decided to finally get this off my to-read list and see how the book compared to its film version.

My first reaction is that it’s different in surprising ways. I won’t ruin it for people who have yet to read it, but the problem the way they solve the maze in the novel is a bit more complex and the ending is just the littlest bit different. The characters also had a bit of a different flavor to them, but I think that’s true for anything when your imagination is supplying interpretations rather than an actor. The one character whose introduction and personality is remarkably different is Teresa, which I thought pretty interesting. In the movie, she’s fierce to the point of being rabid when she’s introduced — in the movie, she’s calm and very rarely loses her temper. I’m not sure what this says about cinema portrayal of females or the people who adapted the book for the film, but it’s an interesting difference.

Regardless of the changes, I feel the same way about this book as I do about the movie: It’s fine. I don’t hate it, I don’t love it, and the plot is mostly interesting, though I hope future books provide a lot more growth and development from the characters. The way things were set up in this first book, it was mostly about discovering who they were themselves, so they remained mostly stagnant throughout. Without having read the sequels, it’s not something I can firmly recommend, but I am looking forward to reading the sequels — hopefully they deliver.

Publication: May 13th 2014 by Delacorte Press

Goodreads Summary

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Review

Rating: 2.8 out of 5 stars

It was okay-ish. I was just a bit disappointed because the book received too much hype and it just did not reach my expectation.

It was intriguing but very predictable.

I guessed the mystery even before I was halfway through the book.

I would not say it was an awful book because it is not. I get that many people liked this one.

I think that it is just not what I have been used to reading, something that did not interest me that much and the way I knew the conclusion even before the mystery began to unravel kind of what thwarted me.

Review also posted on my Goodreads account