Okay, I wrote this review ages ago (as in like June, or whenever it came out), but I'm going to post it anyway.
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This book follows a girl named Cadence Sinclair Eastman. She comes from a wealthy and perfect family. Every summer her family goes to her Grandfather's Island. They each have a house there.
Her, her cousins, Mirren and Johnny, and Johnny's future step father's nephew, Gat, are called the Liars.
When they are fifteen, Cadence has an accident. She doesn't remember anything from that summer. She doesn't come back the next year. But she does again when she's seventeen. And she's looking for answers. She hopes her cousins and Gat have the answers.
Yes, usually my reviews are on books written a couple of years ago, and as well, I'm a bit late reading this but anyhow. Also, I borrowed the books from the library.
Anyway, on with the review. Just a tip, this has spoilers. Sorry!
So, when I started reading this book I wasn't really into it. Within the first chapter, I felt it was really weird. It said something about her father packing the car, then the next minute he'd pulled out a gun and shot her? And then all her Mom did was tell her to get up and not make a scene? I mean, that's crazy. Imagine your Dad pulling out a gun and shooting you. Would your Mom just tell you to get up? Mine wouldn't. She'd probably attack him.
I wanted to read this book because of the amount of amazing reviews it got. They said go in blind and that's what I did. With school and extracurricular activities, I read the book quite slowly. I think that's one of the reasons that I felt the book wasn't very good.
I was also talking to a couple other people and they felt they couldn't finish the story either. I hate not finishing stories, so I pushed through. It wasn't a very thick book either. Surely, it wouldn't take that long to finish? Once I'd reached half way I was engrossed. I couldn't stop reading.
This book tore me to pieces. People say the same thing about The Fault In Our Stars; I never shed a tear. This book broke me.
It also frustrated me to no end. I really annoyed me. Well, Cadence did.
Another reason why I felt it wasn't very good, at first, was because of how everything that happened never seemed to mean anything. For one, she had said she got very bad headaches. And she said it again, and again, and again. I felt it was unneeded. But once I had finished the book, it all added up.
Another thing; Mirren never got Cadence's emails, Johnny never got the present. When Mirren told Cadence that she didn't like emails, so didn't respond to them, it was a bit strange. But I thought nothing else of it. It didn't sound that insane.
As we go through the book, Cadence remembers more and more from her summer two years ago. She remembers something about a fire. She remembers her aunties and mother fighting. She remembers their master plan.
She constantly thinks of her granddad's two dogs, but she doesn't think of what happened to them.
They were going to burn all documents and everything else in the house so their parents would stop fighting. Mirren was to take the second floor, Johnny the first, Cadence the ground and Gat the basement. It all seem okay. That was until the plan got into action.
She remembered them burning the house with the two dogs inside.
I actually hate Cadence. I was screaming at her, even though she couldn't hear me. I told her how she was the stupidest person in the world.
Here's what I thought: She set fire to the ground floor without waiting for the others to get down the stairs. She should have waited for Mirren to light her floor, then Johnny his, maybe at the same time as Gat and then her last. Definitely not first!!!! How stupid can she be?!? Then she ran out of the house thinking they had gotten out? Really, she was by the exit. She would have seen them pass. How else were they going to get out? The window? Unlikely.
I felt so upset. She left the house, with her cousins burning to death inside. She set the house on fire with her cousins there! She killed her cousins!
Everything made sense. Mirren didn't reply to the emails because she wasn't alive to. Johnny didn't get her gift because he was dead. Each time she talked to them, they were ghosts. She spent hours, talking to them, staying in one of her cousin's house that was abandoned, but she was all alone. They weren't really there.
It really surprised me. It also devastated me.
I would definitely recommend it, but really you have to be prepared for some major crying issues as well as anger.
E. Lockhart is so smart. The plot was unimaginable.
I think Cadence is probably my most hated character even. She was annoying, high maintenance and all around stupid. She was very annoying because she complained way too much. I know she had an accidence, but she only seemed to realise what was happening to her. She complained about her head, her headaches. I can see why Mirren got annoyed. She was dead and Cadence was complaining about headaches.
I also really liked Gat and then found out he was dead. It made me sad. That's an understatement. I also hated the way her granddad was very racist and didn't like Gat. It was quite cruel. He looked down on Gat because of his colour. He didn't think Gat and his uncle Ed belonged in their perfect family.
All in all, it was an emotional rollercoaster and, although I do recommend it, I never want to read it every again. Ever.
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