We Were Liars was one of the most talked about books of 2014 - and I managed to avoid it completely! So much hype, so many reviews and I did not read a single thing about it. I knew the whole 'if anyone asks you about the ending, just lie' thing but other than that I knew nothing. Was I surprised? Yes. Did I love it? Ehhh.... 
 Look, it was better than my previous read 'Cherry Blossom Dreams', that's for sure. Easily. And it sucked me in bad. I read it overnight and was totally intrigued. I will keep my summary short: it's about four friends, Sinclair cousins Cadence, Mirren and Johnny, and their friend Gat, who all summer together on the Sinclair family's private island. But something has happened, an accident, and Cadence only has hazy memories of 'summer fifteen'. She returns to the island hoping to find answers, but the rest of her family refuse to discuss what happened and she has to piece together the events of that summer by herself. But what will she find? 
 You know a book is going to be full on when it has a map and a family tree in the front of it. Before the book even begins you know you're in for something big. And it took me a little bit to get all the people and their relations straight. But the readability was super easy. I flew through it, absolutely intrigued by the concept. What made it hard to like was the characters - the poor little rich kids for whom life is so tough but really have no idea about the real world and real problems. They were extremely hard to sympathise with and their attitudes really pissed me off at times. Their biggest problems are the inheritance they're going to receive from the controlling patriarch of the family, their grandfather. While hard to like, it's still super interesting and I am just entranced by their weird little rich kid world. 
 It's a quick read, fast paced, and jumps between past and present, leaving you guessing each time. If you're clever enough to put it together before that devastating ending, bravo. But I didn't think that far ahead, although looking back of course I can see all the clues that I kind of just ignored. And then I gasped and marvelled and sent a ranting text message to my boyfriend who had no idea what I was talking about. 
 This was a fairly enjoyable story, but I feel it didn't quite live up to the hype. Possibly if there wasn't so much fanfare around it, I could have liked it more. But you can only enjoy a book about such unlikeable characters you feel removed from so much. It was never going to be a huge favourite, but it wasn't bad. 
 3.5 stars