Publisher: Delacorte Press


Friday, June 20, 2014

Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Posted by 22 Comments

I received this book for free from Random House of Canada in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review: We Were Liars by E. LockhartWe Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Published by Delacorte Press Genres: Contemporary, Mystery, YA
Source: Random House of Canada
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four-stars

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

We Were Liars is an incredible, heartbreaking read that really messes with your mind until the very end. The writing, while not for everyone I’m sure, had me mesmerized. It’s so different and poetic and full of carefully crafted imagery. It’s a writing style that’s really out of the box, you’ll either love it or hate it. Me, I was thoroughly compelled.

The plot itself is one you can’t talk about or read about as you’re bound to find out spoilers. It’s the kind of story where the story itself is a spoiler from very early on. There are hints floating in every corner, pieces of this carefully constructed puzzle laid out for you to put together. My advice: go into this with zero expectations and you might find yourself as enthralled as I was! Although it’s a twist I have seen before in different variations (and thus I wasn’t completely caught off guard by the ending), it never fails to give me goosebumps and sting at my poor heart.

The cast is large, and the dark, twisted fairy-tale-like quality is ever-present inside this tale revolving around greed, power, and material things. This tone is maintained with actual short fairy-tale retellings scattered throughout that bore an eerie resemblance to the present story. It did take me a bit to get all the characters and different disaccords in order – the cryptic, mind-boggly nature of this plot and writing makes it hard to make sense of what’s being conveyed at times, but this is clearly purposeful and I ended up impressed by its cleverness.

But anyways, this review has to stay short because, la la la – no spoilers – it’s that kind of read. Plus the blurb told me to lie, so maybe this review is full of crock and this book is just a bunch of dancing elephants. In any case – 4 stars all the way!

four-stars

4 Hot Espressos

Giveaway: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (Can)

Giveaway: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (Can)

Posted by on 05/03/2014 • 4 Comments

We’ve got a treat for our fellow Canadian readers today! Thanks to the lovely people at Random House Canada you have a chance to win yourself a pretty finished copy of We Were Liars. Both me and Jenni loved this book it’s an amazingly written, thought provoking mystery that kept us both up all night reading. My review will be posted on the blog soon, but you can have a look at Jenni’s below!

See what Jenni thought of We Were Liars here!

Giveaway

Random House of Canada has generously offered a finished copy of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart for giveaway.

Open to Canadian addresses only Giveaway ends May 16th, 2014 Full contest terms and conditions found on Rafflecopter

a…

Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Posted by on 04/11/2014 • 25 Comments

I have been sitting on writing this review for over a day and a half now. WE WERE LIARS is one of those books that I loved so much as a reader and of course I want to share that love with everyone. But I also want people to go into the book just as blindly as I did so they can be taken by surprise as I was. So this review is going to be quite vague and I won’t be touching on many of the plot points.

What I can talk about here is the wonderful writing. I have an update on my Goodreads at 7% where I say that I loved the writing already. The words literally grabbed me at page 1 and did not let go…

Review: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Review: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Posted by on 03/21/2014 • 25 Comments

What a disappointment. And an unexpected one since I was such a fan of her Sisterhood in the Traveling Pants series (which rocked my socks off!). I didn’t dislike this one right away; at first I was very much into it. We start by learning of their dystopian-like community that has formed in the past (our present), after having escaped from a plague ravaged future. A future that is, quite frankly, not at all unrealistic, making it all the more terrifying. Once we get down to business, though, things go downhill fast. From underdeveloped characters, to random – often boring – plot detours, to unemotional insta-love romance.

Prenna starts out as a great character – stubborn and determined. She’s from a future where touching meant death, and is now controlled…

Waiting on Wednesday (91)

Waiting on Wednesday (91)

Posted by on 08/28/2013 • 35 Comments

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

My pick this week:

I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS! WEEEEEE! The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is an all-time favorite of mine. I also adored Sisterhood Everlasting which was like the “10 years later” book, so as soon as I saw her name on an upcoming series I may have squealed a little. It’s very different from anything she’s written before, but it sounds amazing and I have high hopes for this one!

What are you waiting on?

Fresh Batch (New Releases July 21st – 27th)

Fresh Batch (New Releases July 21st – 27th)

Posted by on 07/20/2013 • 12 Comments

Fresh Batch, posted weekly, keeps you up to date on the hottest releases of the upcoming week.

Flavor of the week:

Stacey’s Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

Stacey Jay is a recovering workaholic (or at least working hard at recovering) with three pen names, two small children, and a passion for playing pretend for a living. She’s been a full time mom-writer since 2005 and can’t think of anything she’d rather be doing. Her former careers include theatre performer, professional dancer, poorly paid C-movie actress, bartender, waiter, math tutor (for real) and yoga instructor.

Other releases this week: *In no particular order* *Click on title links for Goodreads*

–  Sizzle (Bad Boy Rockers #1) by…