Book Review - We Were Liars

Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Release Date: 15 May 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1471403989

Synopsis
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. 

My Review
This was another title on our Children's Book of the Year list at work and one that I was looking forward to, I had heard a lot of good things about it, had read some of her other books and enjoyed them and I knew it had won all sorts of prizes so I left it almost til last to read from our list of titles. The other members of staff doing the reading list had mixed opinions, so I went in not quite sure what to expect. 
There are a lot of characters in this book and I found myself getting confused as to who was who, there is a family tree in the front of the book which came in very handy as a reminder but I still found it quite hard to really connect to any of them. The main character - Cadence seems to be a bit of a selfish brat and is very dramatic. A lot of her dialogue seems over the top and she uses a lot of metaphors which I found a little bit annoying. 
Then I started to get into the book, I was intrigued - the island and teh mystery of her 'illness' had me wondering what was happening, but before long I found myself confused as to what exactly was happening. There is also supposed to be this 'big twist' at the end of the book that will make you wonder how you missed it - well I had sort of figured it out, without giving away spoilers I had guessed the she was the one, not her friends, so I was close and I wasn't that bowled over. 
When I finished the book I literally put it down and thought "what the heck have I just read?" it was a real struggle for me and I found myself more annoyed with the characters than empathizing them. And I don't understand why they were called liars, as they don't lie to themselves, each other or their parents, it was just very odd.
This seems to be a marmite book though, when discussing it on Book day with the other staff members from all the libraries they either really disliked it like me or raved about it. In fact it came 2nd place overall on the day with a number of votes which really shocked me. 
So teens may like it, and it's a very different idea. Always worth a try!

My Rating