"We Were Liars," by E. Lockhart

Audience: Young Adult

Genre: Psychological Thriller/Horror

Overall Content Rating: Somewhat Unclean

Content Warnings

Death

two dogs and three kids die

Explicit romance scenes

mentions s-x

Profane language

a--, bulls---,f--k,h-ll

Racism

the grandfather is racist

Substance use

they drink wine, mentions vodka,parlolet and drug addicts

Suicide topics

she wishes she was dead

Violence and/or bloodshed

she imagines being shot

Overall Review

This heartbreaking story is a complicated look at pain and death. The romance is sweet, but the book is definitely an acquired taste, mainly one for people who don't mind death or their books being dark. The imagery is harsh, dark, and strong, but very impressively written. The book has a very sad and overall unsatisfactory ending, at least in my opinion, but that's based on my preference for books with endings that are happy and wrap up the story. There is a second book that I have not read, so it might have a happier more cohesive ending.

Some parts of this book overall are hard to understand, which makes it harder to be immersed in the world portrayed by Lockhart. How the book is worded is sometimes confusing (in my opinion), and though I admire her writing and aiming for a big twist at the end, the actual pacing of the story seems lopsided. In the beginning, it's slow, but by the end, it's quick and rushed.

I would recommend this book to some, but not to others. I would not recommend it for sensitive people. This book handled the things that were unclean pretty poorly, especially the drinking and profane language. The mentions of explicit romance scenes seem to be thrown into the book just because the author could. Overall, it was an okay book, but not one I would read again.