At the start of We Were Liars, the narrator, Cadence Sinclair Eastman, describes her family, the “beautiful Sinclair family,” like this: “The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome. We are old-money Democrats. Our smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive” (3). But it’s clear from the start that appearances aren’t the truth, and that the Sinclairs aren’t going to be so beautiful after all.
So, right: Cadence’s mom is one of three sisters, and every year the whole family summers on a private island owned by Cadence’s grandfather. It’s idyllic: swimming and boat rides and bonfires and picnics, and the best part is that Cadence has two cousins, Johnny and Mirren, who are the same age as her, and there’s also Gat, the nephew of her aunt Carrie’s boyfriend, who’s the same age too and has been coming to the island since the summer they were all eight. Except it isn’t idyllic, not really. Cadence’s grandfather is kind of a jerk, and Cadence’s mom and aunts fight over money and try to manipulate their kids into helping them get what they want, and oh, the summer Cadence was fifteen, something bad happened, something she doesn’t fully remember. (She’s nearly eighteen when the book starts.) She knows she was found in the water alone one night that July, but she doesn’t remember why she went swimming by herself. She figures she hit her head on a rock, which would maybe explain the memory loss and the migraines she now has, but she’s sure there’s something more to what happened. She hasn’t been back to the island since that summer, but she’s back now for four weeks, and she’s determined to remember.
I think this book made me realize that I don’t particularly like suspense novels or stories about dysfunctional families. I did like reading about Gat and Cadence, things like: “Here is something I love about Gat: he is so enthusiastic, so relentlessly interested in the world, that he has trouble imagining the possibility that other people will be bored by what he’s saying” (18). There’s also a scene in which Cadence jokes about how she’s going to be an Olympic handball champion, and how she’ll have a party to celebrate, and what it will be like, and honestly, I think this is my favorite thing in the whole book:
“Let’s plan my Olympic handball party. If it’ll make you happy.”
So we do. Chocolate handballs wrapped in blue fondant. A gold dress for me. Champagne flutes with tiny gold balls inside. We discuss whether people wear weird goggles for handball like they do for racquetball and decide that for purposes of our party, they do. All the guests will wear gold handball goggles for the duration. (121)
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