Okay, to start with.... if you have ANY intention of reading WE WERE LIARS at any point in the near or distant future, please exit this page, IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT read this or any other review, and if you can help it, do NOT read even the blurb on the back of the book. Even though I did start this book with very limited information, I do think that the few things that I knew already actually did detract a bit from the experience. So, go into this book with a totally blank slate, and you should be fine. 
 If you haven't read the book and you're still reading... you may be wanting a general synopsis to help you decide if you want to read it, right? The best I can do is to say that the book is about a teenage girl and her experiences with her very rich family on their private island. Cady is the oldest Sinclair granddaughter, and she narrates her story of all of the summers that she spent with her wealthy cousins. 
 Now, sure, that's not a lot to go by. So, I'll give you one more juicy tidbit. John Green, himself, endorsed this book. Case closed. You WANT to read it.... 
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 The writing was beautiful... I do agree with that. And the twist at the end.... magnificent. Here is where I wish I had never known anything about this novel prior to reading it. I *knew* there was a twist. So, I was constantly looking for it, from page one, and unfortunately there really were enough clues to figure out pretty early on in the story. 
 That said, if I hadn't known to be expecting a twist, I don't think it would have been so straightforward. There *were* several points in the story when I just didn't know what the hell I was reading... and that's something I really don't experience much in the young adult genre, and it wasn't necessarily bad thing. It's just clear from the first page that Cady is a very unreliable narrator, and this fact just works to make the story more mysterious and page turning, I think. 
 Now, there was a strange essence to the story --- the wording, flow, and confusion --- that made the book feel *very* long. I mean, this book is one of the shortest YA novels I've encountered in a while, but it STILL took me about a week to finish. It's not necessarily a bad thing that the book felt long -- just something I wasn't really expecting. 
 I don't feel like this was a magically amazing book in the sense that I want to keep it on my top shelf, ready to reread on an annual basis, like many in my collection. In actuality, I really don't want to read WE WERE LIARS ever again. It's bleak and disturbing in such a way that probably wouldn't make it one I'd grab again in the future --- but, it's well written and nicely thought out enough to *really* appreciate during that first (and final) read.