Ratings:
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆
If This Book Was a Movie Rating: PG
Review:
“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”
y’all get out your fudge and find a comfortable sofa in your private island mansions, because this review will be as long as Penny’s lectures.
The Sinclairs. A beautiful, rich old family that hides every flaw and scar under the guise of “being normal”. They must never be anything else. They are perfect because they want to be. Because they must be.
Granddad is the head of the Sinclair patriarchy (Grandma Tipper died years ago), and he has three beautiful, grown daughters: Penny, Carrie, and Bess. All have children, but none are married; two of them divorced, while the third lives an Indian man, Ed, who Granddad disapproves of.
And then there’s the beautiful Sinclair grandchildren. Seven in total, but the only ones who really matter here are the Liars.
Johnny, Mirren, Gat, and Cadence.
Cadence, Gat, Mirren, Johnny.
“The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.”
This great, rich family goes every summer to Beechwood island, living in one of the four gorgeous houses on it: Clairmont, Red Gate, Windemere, and Cuddledown. Going to Beechwood is a tradition, something the Sinclairs have always done.
But one summer (the Liars call it summer fifteen), something terrible happens. Cadence is found unconscious and barely alive in the shallows of the island. She doesn't remember what happened, and every time she’s told, she can't seem to remember.
She doesn’t go back to Beachwood Island until summer seventeen. But many things have changed. Why are the aunts always crying and drunk? Why is Clairmont gone and New Clairmont built in its place? Why is Granddad acting strange? Why is Cadence giving away everything she owns?
And why can’t Cadence remember what happened in summer fifteen?
characters first because it'll all just make more sense that way.
The Liars.
“Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark.”
Not gonna lie (yes that was intentional), Johnny's description actually describes him perfectly. He’s the comedic relief of the Liars. He prevents the others from getting too sensitive and introspective, because this friend group has problems with melancholiness. I liked the guy a lot.
“Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain.”
Mirren's actually a halfway decent Sinclair (a rare thing, you understand). I liked how she is the strength and support of the Sinclair family, even as every single one of them is crumbling into nothing.
“Gat, he is contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee.”
YES GAT. Honestly, the dude is the best character of this entire flippin’ novel. I loved him. He’s got ambition, he's not crazed, selfish, broken, or rich. Mainly because he’s not a Sinclair. Gat’s the nephew of Ed (the Indian man Bess is with), and he’s sadly the only non-white character given anything remotely like depth in this book. He’s an outsider in nearly every way imaginable. He's treated terribly by the Sinclairs, and even his beloved Cadence is ignorant to just how bad.
And Cadence, she is forgetfulness, emotion, and blood.
(Yes, I did this one because as the narrator, she didn’t get one. Humph. Making me do work.
*aggressively rolls eyes*
So, Cadence was probably my least favorite Liar. The girl was selfish and had a tad much self-pity because of all her migraines and pain meds. She had no clue just how rich and privileged she was, and that seriously annoyed me.
But Cadence’s annoying qualities are a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of her dysfunctional family.
The three daughters were definitely intended to project beautiful, rich, and secretly hurting heiress vibes (biggest lie of the book right there). In reality, they’re perpetually crying, sad, drunk, and the most stupidly useless women I have ever had the misfortune to meet. These gRoWN wOmEn have literally never worked a day in their lives and are all dependent on their eighty year old dad's monetary favor.
*yells into a pillow*
AND they put massive pressure on their kids (especially the Liars), to suck up to Granddad in hopes of one of them being named the heir to the Sinclair fortune.
I really, really did not like them.
BUT GRANDDAD THO.
Granddad is worse.
When he spurted out some straight-up racist crap about Gat and Ed, I almost flew into the book and punched the man into the ocean myself. IT WAS INFURIATING.
And he is ridiculously elitist.
Besides all that, Granddad acts generally strange throughout most of the book. And I get part of his strangeness was bottled-up grief over the deaths of his wife Tipper and their faithful dogs, as well as dementia. I do truly understand. But that is no excuse to act as racist and elitist as he did.
So I really did not like Granddad either.
Now. Writing style. I am 100% fully aware that a lot of people (including a lot of my GR friends love y'all) absolutely despised the writing style.
I get that.
Reading sentences like
this
can get
rather
frustrating.
But for me, this weird broken up sentence thing wasn’t that bad. I maaaayybe even liked it.
HAH THERE I SAID IT.
But yah. Wasn’t that annoying and I understood why Lockhart might’ve wanted to write her sentences broken up like that sometimes. Weird but ok.
Finally, the plot. Okay. So for the first 90%, the plot was dead boring. Practically nonexistent. Just Cadence struggling to remember and this dysfunctional family being dysfunctional.
BUT THEN THAT PLOT TWIST HAPPENED.
I know people have been hyping up the plot twist, but I gotta say, I did not see that coming. While I will be the first to admit I am certifiably the worst at predicting plot twists and who murdered who, THIS PLOT TWIST PUT ALL OTHERS TO SHAME. This plot twist made me change my rating from an almost-one star to a solid three stars. That’s how good it was. I may have even felt a few tears in my eyes (which is rarer than you might think if you've come from my review of Heartless lol ;)
I won’t say any more because this is definitely a novel that you don't want spoilers. It becomes rather worthless if you get spoilers. But if you don't get spoilers, I recommend reading it, because 1) it’s not that long, and 2) you might even enjoy some of it. Probably the plot twist.
i'm still not over that plot twist btw
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Recommendations If You Liked This Book:
One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
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