Tall, blond Cadance Sinclair Eastman is the apple of her grandfather Harris’ eye as the oldest granddaughter. The Sinclair family come from money and each summer the Aunts (Cadance’s mother and her two sisters) gather with their children off a private Island in Massachusetts owned by Harris. The children, or really teens (all around 15) fondly refer to themselves as “The Liars” and consist of Cadance, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat, who is a friend of the family.
During that 15th summer, Cadance finds she has a crush of Gat; and really – he on her as well. It is a summer of new love until an accident leave Cadance with a concussion and no memory as to what happened. She misses the next summer at the Island but returns her 17th year still knowing little of what happened. Her cousins had not responded to her emails over the past year, and even Gat seems to have been avoiding her; no one wanting to tell her the details of what happened those two summers ago as her doctor has said it was best if she remembered on her own.
As Cadance slowly begins to remember snippets of what happened she starts to piece together a horrible truth.
We Are Liars blew me out of the water. And shoot…. I didn’t even know I was in water! This is a book of friendships and first love. I enjoyed the imagery of these four friends hanging out on an island together each summer, reconnecting, swimming, having fun, and largely having the place to themselves except for meals with the adults and the occasional chores.
Cadance was a likable protagonist; even after her injury as her messed up mind tried to put it all back together I rooted for her… wanting to know just as much as the next person what had happened and why all the secrecy!
There are few books that truly shock me, but We Are Liars sent me shooting high above the ground and then spiraling down at break neck speed. I read somewhere that this was a book to read in one sitting. I listened to this on audio from start to finish, not wanting to stop.
A book full of tiny pebbles of clues that after all was said in done I was all “Whoa…” and “oh that makes sense” and “nicely played” as well. 🙂
I highly recommend this book – fantastic on audio and I imagine the book would play out just as well.
Book Journey 
Just read this and loved it, too…but, Sheila…her name is Cadance with no n….because they call her Cady.
Gah thats right… I keep translating it in my head 🙂
2nd rave I’ve read this week. I guess I better move this up the to read list.
Great!
Sheila…if you loved that one you should try Bittersweet…the author is amazing…as is the book!
Thanks – I will look into that 🙂
I finished We Were Liars and immediately went on to Bittersweet – I am loving it!! It has a lot of similarities to Liars, but is less reliant on “action” and more on an outsider’s observations of the extremely wealthy’s behavior…although there are definitely secrets and surprises also! The whole “extremely wealthy based at a summer retreat” theme is identical to Liars….and sometimes I forget which characters are from which!
This one is on my list!
Well, I’ll be adding this one to my list now. Enjoyed your review, especially the “We Are Liars blew me out of the water. And shoot…. I didn’t even know I was in water!”
LOL! Good!
This sounds very wish list worthy. Great review!
Thanks – I couldnt wait to review it!
I absolutely loved this one too. I gave my arc to the HS librarian and told her to be prepared to want to buy several copies for the school!!
Oh that is awesome!
I recently posted my review for this one as well – it was a hard one to write!! It was hard to balance how much to say! But, I felt the same way you did about it – quite a book and I think will be the most talked about book of summer!
PS – I said this was a book for one sitting – but I’m sure others have said it as well!
sounds amazing, heading over to my goodreads list to add it! 🙂