“This is the best book I have ever read,” claimed a girl at my summer camp two years ago. I told her that most books are predictable and that this book looked very predictable. She laughed and told me she would pay me $50 if I could predict the ending by the end of camp. I said deal. She lent me her copy of We Were Liars, and I read it every day that week. I did not get far in the book, but I was pretty sure I could guess the ending. I was so wrong. She, once again, laughed at me. She said that I could not have been more wrong. I said whatever, but I ended up buying the book the day we got out of camp. I got about 50 pages in by the time school started and decided to take a break from it. Fast forward over a year, I decided it was time to finish what I started.
I had forgotten what an amazing book it is. E. Lockhart uses such vivid diction throughout the novel that puts an image of death into the reader's mind. The main character, Cadence Saintclaire, says things like, “My veins opened. My wrists split. I bled down my palms”(Lockhart 33) when she describes how her love feels toward a boy her cousin brought on the family vacation. It creates such an interesting insight and interpretation of how teen love feels. This confusing word choice makes the reader have to think, and even constantly re-read, to understand the deeper meaning of her text. I love books that make you think hard, and this was successfully one of them.
Throughout the whole book Cadence, also known as Cady, recalls memories of her childhood from her annual family vacations. But there is a gap, something missing, Summer 15. She has no recollection of the whole summer after she woke up in a hospital bed with raging migraines and constant throwing up. Her life was turned upside down. Her new sickness brought her into a deep depression for a year. What didn’t help was the love of her life, and her cousins never returned her emails or calls she sent them. It devastated her. Two years after her incident, her mother finally let her return to the family vacation. Cady has the goal to remember what happened Summer 15. But she is on her own, her mother has told all of the family to keep what happened quiet. Never in a million years could I have predicted what would happen at the end of this book, but I will say, I cried harder while reading the last couple of chapters than I ever have with any other book.
If you are someone who appreciates thriller books with complex and meaningful diction, this book is for you. I never knew what was going to happen next while reading this. Because of that, it was hard for me to put this book down. I would think I was reading it for 20 minutes, but it would end up being hours. E. Lockhart incorporates a Romeo and Juliet-like teen romance throughout her novel that adds extra suspense to everything that happens. The relationship might have been very expected, but the outcome was not. I would give this book five stars. My camp friend might have been right, this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
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