I read “We Were Liars” the summer after my sixteenth birthday and I fell in love.  This book truly has it all and is completely unlike anything I have ever read.  It perfectly captures themes of grief, loss, childish heartbreak, and the uncovering of psychological trauma.

While reading the book, I thought I had the story completely figured out and that there would be a beautiful fairytale ending between 2 of the main characters, Cadence and Gat.  I could not have been more wrong; however, I was equally delighted at the true outcome of the book.

To summarize, the book starts with Cadence telling stories about her trips to her family-owned island during the summer, to which we find out that she fell in love with one of her cousin’s friends who had come to the island, Gat, the summer she had turned 14.  The same summer, the reader finds out an accident occurred where Cadence got injured and suffered from memory loss and migraines.   Cadence remembers nothing of the accident; she just woke up back home in Vermont.   Cadence and “The Liars,” who are her four cousins (Gat included.  However, Gat is not related to any of them), didn’t return to the island until two years later during which time Cadence hadn’t heard from the Liars at all.  

Cadence finally arrives at the island, where she reunites with her cousins and Gat.  They reunite joyfully until Cadence is forced to remember what had happened.  Before the accident, Cadence’s grandfather had been arguing with Cadence’s parents, aunts, and uncles about who got the house as an inheritance when the grandfather passed.  As an act of rebellion, devastated that their family was letting an inheritance tear them apart, the Liars decided to burn the house down.  Cadence discovers that she alone was the sole survivor of the accident, and the Liars weren’t actually with her on the island.  Instead, she is hallucinating due to the migraine prescription she was given.  The story ends with Cadence grieving her family and vowing to do right by those who were lost in the fire.  

This book was a turning point in literature not only for me but for a lot of my friends as well.  I read this book and fell in love immediately, the feelings of guilt and regret were so vivid even depicted through ink and pages left me with a heavy heart.