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.
REVIEW:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
We Were Liars has so many mixed reviews. “It’s the best book ever!” “It’s the worst book ever!” In truth, it just comes down to what you like. E. Lockhart has an unusual writing style, including random paragraph breaks for emphasis and extended metaphors (that are not always obviously metaphors). I thought that these elements added to the somewhat disturbing atmosphere of the book, but if you don’t like them, you won’t like We Were Liars.
Additionally, I’ve seen reviews complain about the plot and characters. The characters are not good people, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be. Yes, they focus on “rich people problems” and are childish in the way they handle them, but that’s a main theme of the book. And yes, the plot is more atmospheric than concrete, so I recommend reading it in a few sittings rather than spreading it out as to not get lost or bored.
While I don’t see myself reading We Were Liars again or purchasing it for my shelf, I have to say that it is cutting, atmospheric, and utterly original.
High heels. White gloves. Debutantes. Blackmail. One of these things is not like the others…
Sawyer Taft is 18, an auto mechanic, and an expert at threatening sexual harassers on the job. What she doesn’t know is that she is also a future debutante… and accessory to a felony (or a few).
While Sawyer’s mother is away on another one of her whirlwind romances, Sawyer’s grandmother arrives on her doorstep offering her $500,000- to Sawyer, this is more than an opportunity to get out of her small town and go to college: this is her opportunity to finally discover who her father is. The catch? She has to stay at her grandmother’s house for a year to participate in the debutante season.
While being prodded, plucked, and trained to be a perfectly charming “Deb,” Sawyer stumbles upon a dangerous secret kept by her cousin Lily. So-called “Little Miss Perfect” has been keeping a semi-explicit photo blog, and a fellow Deb has the evidence to expose her for it. Faced with ruining her reputation, Lily does all that she can to preserve it, dragging Sawyer and ever-anxious friend Sadie-Grace down with her.
Little White Lies is Mamma Mia meets Miss Congeniality meets a multi-faceted mystery all wrapped up in one quick read.
Review:
Asterisks will be used to refer to events without spoilers. Refer to the asterisk at the bottom of the page to see the spoiler.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
I went into this book thinking I knew what to expect. Sawyer lives at her grandmother’s house, can’t walk in heels, makes lots of jokes about debutantes, searches for her father, causes general chaos, and uncovers a family secret. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. While Little White Lies includes all of these things, it also covers much, much more. Like blackmail, kidnapping, a semi-explicit photo blog, a hit-and-run, and a few more felonies sprinkled in.
Little White Lies alternates between short chapters centering on the present, where the debutantes are locked in a jail cell, and regular-length chapters that lead up to their arrest. The titles of the chapters count down to the present, which helps to determine a timeline and build excitement. However, with that being said, the flash-forwards also added an element of confusion. The police officer, Mackie, has trouble distinguishing between the debutantes, referring to each as “the girl who picked the lock,” and other nicknames. Without reading too far into the novel, it is hard to distinguish between the debutantes yourself. This caused a rocky start for me in reading this novel, but it became smoother as time went on.
I am a sucker for books set in high society, especially when the main character doesn’t necessarily fit into said society. This is the perfect example of that. Sawyer is a fun, relatable yet unique character. I loved her point of view and interactions with the other characters, who were nearly as endearing.
One thing I continue to notice in Barnes’ writing is her ability to write incredibly realistic and nuanced female friendships. This was shown perfectly in the friendship between Sawyer and Lily. It has ups and downs, and downs that turn into ups in a matter of seconds. They say the wrong things. They try to forget mistakes instead of forgive them. They are, in short, just like every other teenager. They are young; they’re still growing; yet, they have an inexplicable bond.
Lily slid in beside me. The two of us sat cross-legged with our knees touching as I paged through the book, sheet by sheet. I’d never been the slumber-party, confiding-in-other-girls type. Having Lily here with me should have felt invasive, but it didn’t.
Page 205, Little White Lies, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Another relationship that Barnes portrayed perfectly was between Sawyer and her mother. The way Barnes showed Sawyer’s love for her mother, even through deeply frustrating circumstances, captured the teenage mother-daughter relationship unbelievably accurately. The awkwardness, attempts to brush over questions, and familiarity after being apart for a long time were reminiscent of my own relationship with my mother.
Little White Lies includes several full-page photos with confessions written on them. These are labeled “Secrets on My Skin” with a website written below (www.secretsonmyskin.com/community) in order to model a website featured in the story. Secrets on My Skin is the semi-nude photo blog run by Lily, Sawyer’s Type-A cousin. I had several issues with this part of the plot, which largely lead to its final rating. Secrets on My Skin allows people to submit their confessions for the anonymous photographer (Lily) to paint on her body and post.
The images that were put into the book to model Secrets on My Skin posts were completely unnecessary. For one thing, they weren’t even what Secrets on My Skin posts would have looked like. They used random photos in the background (doesn’t this look exactly like the app Whisper?). I understand why they did that (they can’t put nearly pornographic images in a Young Adult novel…), but I would have rather they didn’t put them in at all. They didn’t add anything to the story except for confusion and flashbacks to 2014. Trust me, I do not want to go back to 2014.
Additionally, these “confessions” are inserted into the book before we learn what Secrets on My Skin is, causing more confusion. I initially thought there was some kind of misprint in the book that had caused scammers to put in ads. I even did a Google search to figure out what was going on, only to find several people with the same question.
As a current high schooler, I have to say that Secrets on My Skin aged the book majorly. Secrets of My Skin stunk of Whisper, an anonymous confession app that was popular around 2014. If you were an adolescent during that time on the internet, you’ve probably seen Whisper confessions, especially on BuzzFeed Video’s YouTube. Personally, the idea of Secrets on My Skin reminded me so much of Whisper that it was hard for me to believe that this book was set in 2018 and not four years prior. This part of the plot seemed unrealistic for today’s culture.
In addition, there were so many unanswered questions when it came to the blog. Did only their high school’s students submit confessions? Was this a blog that was popular throughout the country? If so, how were they so sure that one fairly vague confession* was from a student at their school? I feel that Secrets on My Skin is the younger, meeker sister of the dialogue in Netflix Originals when adults try to write teenagers and fail horribly.
The end of the novel seemed somewhat abrupt, but I cut some slack for that considering that there is a sequel. The information** discovered at the end was entirely surprising to me, and any loose ends that aren’t wrapped up are sure to be put into a little bow in Deadly Little Scandals.
Overall, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy this novel. Will I be seeking out the sequel? Probably not. I enjoyed the characters and relationships, but I wanted more from Barnes. It seems to be a pattern in her writing for me (I had the same problem while reading The Inheritance Games). I want more descriptive scenery, more character development, more drama. Just more, overall. I feel that she puts so much into her novels- great dialogue, interesting relationships, so many quirky characters- that it can be hard to do all of that to the fullest. On the other hand, this style of writing does make for a fast-paced read. There wasn’t a moment where the book stalled or I was bored. There were times I had to put it down and think for a moment because it was going so fast!
In the end, it all comes down to your preferences. I think Little White Lies was a fun, light, and fast read, but something that I am not likely to remember a year from now.
Spoilers
*The confession “I was driving,” was tied back to Walker (Lily’s ex-boyfriend), who believed at that time to have been driving drunk in the crash that severely hurt Nick’s brother.
**The information I am referring to here is that Sawyer’s father is not who she previously believed him to be. She discovers that her mother made a pregnancy pact with Greer and a girl named Ana, and the man whom Sawyer thought was her father was in fact the father of Ana’s baby instead.
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