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Cover of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars

E. Lockhart

  • 240 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 2014
  • 11 editions
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1 About this book

Cadence Sinclair Eastman is the eldest grandchild of a wealthy, old-money family that spends every summer on its private island off the coast of Massachusetts. She, her cousins Johnny and Mirren and their friend Gat have been inseparable there since childhood, and the family calls the four of them the Liars. During her fifteenth summer something happened to Cadence that she cannot remember. Two years later she returns to the island, where no one will tell her what took place, and tries to piece it together for herself.

  • Friendship
  • Love
  • Wealth
  • Amnesia
  • Islands
  • Family life
  • Young adult fiction
  • Teenage girls

2 What to expect

A short young adult suspense novel narrated by a girl from a wealthy family who cannot remember what happened to her one summer on their private island. Privilege, family pressure, first love and the cost of one's mistakes are the themes. The prose is spare and fragmented, and the narrator cannot be fully trusted. Everything builds toward its last chapters, so avoid reading about it first.

Good for readers who want: young adult suspense, an unreliable narrator, and a short, emotional read.

3 About E. Lockhart

Born 1967

Emily Jenkins (born September 13, 1967), who sometimes uses the pen name E. Lockhart, is an American writer of children's picture books, young adult novels, and adult fiction. She is best known for the novels The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and We Were Liars; the latter was adapted into a television series in 2025. Her father, Len Jenkin, is a playwright.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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