Book Journey

On April 14th, 1989, Ramon Salcido came home and murdered his wife, Angela, her two sisters, and his mother-in-law.  He took his three young daughters; Sophia (4), Carmina (3), and 22 month old Teresa and drove around for hours eventually taking them to a county dump and slashing their throats one at a time.

Miraculously, more than a day later, the three children’s bodies were discovered and 3-year-old Camina was still alive.

You would think that Carmina had enough trauma to last a life time, but her run of unhappiness continued from there.  Now with no family who could care for her, Carmina is adopted by a highly dysfunctional family that changes her name claiming that “Carmina” had died that day and has now been reborn as someone new.  The bizarre behavior does not end there.  Eventually she winds up at a girls camp for troubled girls which was both mentally and physically damaging. Meanwhile, Carmina’s father is still alive in prison… and he would like to see her…

Oof ta.  You may wonder why this book, now 5 years after being published, I decided to read it now.  Interestingly, I found this audio by narrator.  Xe Sands has an amazing narrative voice and while looking for good audio and coming up with nothing that was catching my attention I tried looking up books by narrators (yup… you can do that).  When I read the synopsis on this book, on a true crime that I had never heard of, I knew I wanted to know more.

My heart breaks for Carmina.  What a devastating life she has led.  This book,written by Carmina, tells the events that surrounded the tragedy in her life starting at a very young age.  With the assistance of friends, relatives, and co-workers to her parents, Carmina is able to piece together what seems to have happened that fateful day that her father killed her entire immediate family.  Will Carmina every know all the answers?  No, but she seem to have a pretty good idea.

The audio, is smooth and the story line if well paced.  I was horrified to listen to what happened to this family.  Recommended.

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.