Review: We Were Liars

The Fussy Stuff

Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Format: Print

Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary

Quick Take: This book is one of my favorites and has been read many times. Starting a new E. Lockhart sent me spiralling into thoughts about author voice, consistency, and why some writers sound exactly like themselves no matter what they write, and others seem like a completely different person from book to book.

My Take

Let me be upfront: this is not really a review.

At this point, anyone in the bookish corner of the internet knows We Were Liars. It has been talked about, dissected, spoiled, and recommended to death. You do not need me to tell you it is good. You already know.

I will, however, note for the record that I quote unquote liked it before it was cool. I am going to take my points for that and move on.

What this actually is, is the kind of post I started this blog to write. Books do something to my brain. They send me down rabbit holes, set off comparisons I cannot stop making, and surface questions I did not know I had been sitting with. I wanted somewhere to put all of that. This is one of those posts.

I have read We Were Liars a handful of times now, and I have a signed copy in my collection, which I think is genuinely cool and will be mentioning every time it comes up. I am currently reading the new E. Lockhart book, We Fell Apart, and so far I am quite enjoying it. And that, as it turns out, is where the spiral started.

Inspired by this, I checked out my library to see what other books they had by the same author. Genuine Fraud was available on audiobook, another E. Lockhart, a book I know I have read before. Sounds like a dream, right?

I am barely able to pay attention. I keep zoning out, rewinding, zoning out again. Meanwhile, I am staying up too late every night racing through We Fell Apart. Both of these are E. Lockhart. They do not feel like the same writer at all.

Which made me start thinking about what We Were Liars actually is, and why it works the way it does. I get absorbed into this story, without even trying. I can feel the atmosphere like I was there myself, and am desperate for the next page – even already knowing what happens. Lockhart’s voice is that compelling and special. Maybe that is why I am so sad I cannot feel that same magic in Genuine Fraud. I am not saying Genuine Fraud is bad. I am saying it does not feel like the same author is in the room. How can the same person incite such a strong reaction in me in one series, and pretty much nothing in another?

Brandon Sanderson is the other example I keep coming back to. Tress of the Emerald Sea is one of my all-time favourite books, mostly because of how much I love the narrator’s voice and the extra warmth and comedy it brings to the story. And then there are other Sanderson books that I find, in my humble opinion, genuinely meh. Same author. Wildly different experience. I do not understand how that is possible, and yet here we are.

Compare that to someone like Stephen King, where you can open to a random page of almost anything he has written and know immediately who wrote it. The voice is so consistently, unmistakably his that it functions like a fingerprint. You are always reading the same person, even when the story is completely different. There is a comfort in that. You know what you are signing up for. But does it take the same set of skills?

I do not think one approach is better than the other. A writer who can put on completely different hats from book to book has a kind of range that is genuinely impressive. But it does create a particular reading experience where you are never quite sure what you are getting. You fall in love with one book and go looking for more of the same, and sometimes you find it and sometimes you absolutely do not, and there is no way to know in advance.

I do not have a tidy answer for any of this. I am not sure there is one. But the fact that We Fell Apart sent me straight back to We Were Liars, and that We Were Liars sent me down this whole train of thought, feels like the best possible endorsement for both of them. Some books earn their place in your brain not just by being good, but by giving you something to keep chewing on long after you have put them down.

We Were Liars is one of those books. Signed copy and all.

Unfussed Verdict

If you have not read We Were Liars, read it. If you have and the ending wrecked you, consider a reread: there is a whole second layer waiting once you already know what is coming. And if you have ever loved a book by an author whose other work left you completely cold, I would love to know I am not the only one.

Unfussed Homework (Optional, Obviously)

Think of an author where one book completely won you over and another felt like it was written by a stranger. Did you keep going back, or did you decide that one win was enough? And on the flip side: is there something reassuring about an author whose voice you can always count on, or does that start to feel like a limitation after a while?