If I were being generous, I would probably give this book 1.5 stars on its own. It's that ending that made me bump it up a star. WE WERE LIARS is a story about...summer? Youth? Lies? Guilt? I'm honestly still not sure. 
 "Do not accept an evil you can change." 
 The only real lie in WE WERE LIARS is that it doesn't really contain any lies. Maybe I'm wrong, but I was expecting these characters to be notorious liars and get up to all sorts of nefarious deeds but...no. Why were they called liars? No one really lied? We are just TOLD they are liars. I guess they lie to themselves? (view spoiler)[You COULD say the main character lied but she forgot due to stress and guilt and her injuries so she didn't really lie. (hide spoiler)] 
 I'm missing the point, obviously. There is a plot but I am not sure I get the endgame. Is there a meaning or a lesson to be learned? (view spoiler)[Perhaps it's: don't underage drink and plot to burn a house down? (hide spoiler)] While a good distraction for a few hours, I am not walking away from this one with much. 
 Anyways. The characters themselves are interesting and I would have liked to learn more about them as they definitely had the potential to be fleshed out and really intriguing. However, the book doesn't focus on them too much in its 200 pages, and it almost seems like this one was only written just to get to the shock value of the ending. 
 "Always do what you're afraid to do." 
 The stupidity of the teenagers made me so mad. There's the "haha" regular stupid mistakes of youth and then there's (view spoiler)[burning a house down with family and friends inside. Whoopsie, kids will be kids. (hide spoiler)] Even the adults in this book are selfish and insanely manipulative and make terrible decisions. 
 Due to the focus on the day to day summer life of privileged teenagers, this book could be a little tedious at times. 
 Overall I would recommend this to people who are used to the average contemporary novel but want a wicked twist. 
 "Be a little kinder than you have to."