Lockhart has just released the third installment in her series We Were Liars. Each book follows a different set of characters, although all of them are related in some way. The second season of the TV show has just been announced, and it will follow the events of the second book, Family Of Liars.
We Were Liars
We Were Liars follows the story of Cadence Sinclair Eastman and switches between Summer 15 and Summer 17 (she names each summer after her age at the time). Her family is seen as American royalty, and her grandfather owns Beech-wood Island. Cady, her mother, and her cousins all go and visit her grandparents every summer. She spends her time at Beech-wood with her cousins, Mirren and Johnny, and a boy named Gat. (His connection to the Sinclair family is complicated. Cady’s aunt Carrie, Johnny’s mother, is dating a man named Ed, who is the sweetest person in the entire book. Ed is Gat’s uncle, and he is the one who takes care of him. He’s also best friends with Johnny, except for the times when they argue over moral values). All seventeen-year-old Cady knows is that she hit her head on the rocks at the beach during Summer 15, her memories of that summer are fragmented, and her cousins and situation ship didn’t contact her at all to see if she was okay after her injury. Once returning to Beech-wood after skipping Summer 16, Cady starts to piece together what truly happened to her. Mirren, Johnny and Gat have to hide the truth for her well-being, even though it hurts them more than it hurts her.
Family of Liars
The next book in the series, Family of Liars, takes place during Cady’s aunt Carrie’s teenage years. She is telling a story to her son, Johnny, although the context on why she’s telling him all of this spoils We Were Liars. Carrie’s cousin Yardley invited her boyfriend and his friends to the island that summer, including a boy named Pfeff. Throughout the book, Carrie’s complicated temporary relationship with Pfeff is explored, along with many dark secrets the Sinclair family hid from future generations.
We Fell Apart
This is the newest edition to the We Were Liars series. It is the first book to not take place on Beech-wood Island, but the characters still visit it, even though it was trespassing. The main character, Matilda, has never met her father and her mother abandoned her to live in Mexico City with a man she just met. One day, she gets an email from Kingsley Cello, an extremely famous and influential painter, telling her that he is her dad and that he wants to meet her. We Fell Apart explores Matilda’s unexpected connection to the Sinclair family, her half-brother she didn’t know she had, and her relationship with a boy named Tatum.
Opinions
Cadence Sinclair isn’t a terrible person compared to some other characters, but I DESPISED her so much. I understand why she was upset that her cousins and boyfriend (if he can even be called that, he was dating a girl named Raquel and never got the chance to break up with her) didn’t contact her for two years after her injury, but she was so harsh about it. Another detail about her was mentioned in We Fell Apart that just made me hate her even more. I also wish the main characters of We Fell Apart contacted Cady at the end of the book, but they never spoke to her (well, one of them tried to speak to her, but she just ignored him).
Even worse than Cadence was her aunt Bess, also known as Mirren’s mother. In the TV show, she was so cruel towards her daughter because of her interest in painting and because she confided in her cousins about what she saw her doing on the tennis court.
Tatum and Meer were my absolute favorite characters in We Fell Apart. Sure, Meer may have manipulated Matilda, but it was necessary! I did love her character, but I couldn’t stand when she kept insulting Tatum before they began dating. She called him a “wounded orphan boy”, “manipulative and controlling and friendless and a moody weasel”, and a “tortured loner”. He was depressed because his parents died! Matilda needed to be much less harsh with him. Tatum wasn’t nearly as bad as Matilda said he was, and he was actually extremely sweet. While he was reclusive and quiet, it was because everybody on the island knew something that Matilda could absolutely not find out about. He even had to ditch all his friends because of something Meer’s mother, June, said! I felt bad for her character, but I also didn’t like her.
I was expecting more of a plot twist from We Fell Apart, but my expectations were extremely high because of how much We Were Liars shocked me. The book was still really good, but I just expected more from it.
On the sprayed edge of We Fell Apart reads for words “It was a bad place to fall in love”, which is also the first line of the book. That sentence refers to Hidden Beach, where Matilda’s father lives, but it just doesn’t make any sense. Tatum and Matilda did fall in love on Hidden Beach, and although they didn’t get along at first, their relationship did really well. June and Kingsley Cello’s relationship wasn’t very healthy, but they didn’t even meet or fall in love at Hidden Beach. Matilda’s mother never even knew it existed! I wish the line fit better with the book, or that E. Lockhart chose a more fitting one for the sprayed edge.
Family of Liars was an extremely good book. I initially didn’t like that so much about Carrie’s life was left out of it, like her meeting her first husband, divorcing him, and meeting Ed. However, it makes sense when I think about it. The book was Carrie telling Johnny an important story about her life, and her first failed husband wasn’t relative to that. Johnny must have already known that story very well, so why should she re-tell it just so the reader gets more information?
Book-To-Show Differences
We Were Liars is a rare case where the TV show is just as good as, if not better than the books. So far, only one season has been released based off of the original book. While there are several differences, including the incident where Cady hit her head on the rocks occurring during Summer 16 instead of the previous year, my favorite one is how much more it shows Mirren’s character. She had a boyfriend she wasn’t supposed to have named Ebon, and her rebellion with him and her artwork made her such an amazing character. More is added to Johnny Sinclair’s story as well, which I really enjoyed learning about.
