We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (Book Summary and Review) - Minute Book Report

Описание: This is a quick book summary and analysis of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.

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This is a story about a girl named Cadence who is a member of the Sinclair family, a rich and powerful family on the East Coast. Cadence spends every summer with her family, extended family, and grandparents on their private island. However, her family is somewhat broken, as her father left her and her mother, her two aunts are divorced, and her grandmother has since passed away.

Although Cadence doesn't see her cousins throughout the year, when they return to the island each summer they seem to pick up right where they left off. She's particularly close with her cousins, Mirren and Johnny, and family friend, Gat, and calls the group "The Liars".

She develops feelings for Gat on the island when she is fifteen, but then she suffers a head injury and can't remember much from that summer. Because of her head injury, she is allowed to return to the island two years later.

When she arrives back on the island, things seem normal at first, but the Liars are acting isolated and her younger cousins, aunts, and grandfather are acting unusual.

Because she is only allowed to spend half the summer on the island and the other half will be spent with her father in Colorado, Cadence tries to better understand what happened on the island two years earlier, but the Liars are reluctant to tell her, as they want her memories to come back to her naturally.

Meanwhile, Cadence realizes that her mother and aunts are fighting over her grandfather's assets, pitting the grandchildren against each other.

Cadence and Gat become closer and express how they feel for each other. She wants to start a relationship with him, but he is reluctant because of things in his past.

Slowly, Cadence starts remembering things from the past and realizes what happened: two years earlier, the Liars set fire to the house. However, she lit the fire before the others could escape and they all died.

In the end, after realizing that she killed the Liars, their spirits disappear.

As always a lot can be said about this story, but what draws my interest and attention is the idea of "the family" and how our ideals of "the family" versus what the reality of "the family" is are pretty different.

For a long time, society has iconicized "the family" as a husband, wife, and two kids. However, that's not always what we see, at least these days. In fact, it's quite uncommon to see that portrayal of "the family".

Instead, we see single parent families, grandparents raising grandchildren, unmarried couples raising kids, and even same-sex couples raising children. The definition of "the family" is changing, and the Sinclair family demonstrates this change.

All three Sinclair daughters have split from their spouses and struggle to make ends meet, relying almost solely on their trust funds to survive. Furthermore, a constant, contentious issue among the sisters is the money and inheritance that each will receive when their father passes away.

In fact, the situation is ironic. The Sinclair family is so wealthy, yet so broken.

This brokenness is also shown through Cadence's grandfather, the patriarch of the family. He is literally losing his mind, and readers should recognize that he's failed as a parent. Yes, he succeeded in the role of a provider, as his wealth has kept their family together all these years. But he ultimately fails to raise his daughters to take care of themselves.

What did you think of the story? Let me know in the comments below.

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Through Minute Book Reports, hopefully you can get the plot and a few relevant discussion points in just a couple of minutes.

Music: "Spirit World" by Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com