Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

26 reviews

page_not_found's review against another edition

mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

toxic family dynamics, racists grandfather, classism, to many rich people problems

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Racism, Dementia, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Drug use and Death of parent

hilarylouise's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Death, and Death of parent

mikathereviewer's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Summary of my review: Short chapters, interesting story line, fast- to medium-paced, nice writing style, showing us readers how the book was planned (first sketches, scenes, etc.), weird romance, all story parts felt so different from the previous ones, disappointing ending, explanantion as to why they are called 'liars' were only mentioned in the afterword instead inside the story 

When I saw that the book has 87 chapters I was like: What
But guess who's happy now for getting short chapters to read :D

Writing style was, well, interesting. I mean sometimes it was out of place and I was confused or preferred if it wasn't written down some parts, but some of them were really cool. Especially the beginning of the book. The eerie feeling was great!

The original hand drawn things, poems, and 'how I wrote We Were Liars' were really cool. Most authors don't include this, even though I think it's good to see the progress of a story for people who might plan to write their first one themselves. 
(Also kinda glad the name 'Let's do and say we didn't' was changed to 'we were liars')

Despite everything I still liked the story. The plot. What happened. It didn't turn out like I hoped for, but it was still interesting to read. And honestly I wasn't triggered by anything. 
Also, thanks for the spoiler warning for the #0 book as I wanted to actually start this one and didn't know that it would spoiler the other one 😅



All parts of the book are so different. The beginning gave me eerie and kinda spooky feelings — I was totally invested.
The middle part was medium-paced and gave me standard thriller vibes. 

The romance was so weird. I used to find it cute at the beginning but it turned out to be more dramatic than necessary and both their decisions weren't really great and I think only hurt their relationship more than doing good. 

The ending was disappointing. I had many theories how it would go and this wasn't one. So one could say the ending wasn't predictable, which I usually love, but I wished for it to be something else actually. I thought the story is perhaps about grief and the whole gory things were metaphors for being sad inside and needing to supress it as everyone in this family does it. I mean they don't even want to talk about people that passed. And the eerie vibe at the beginning made me think that it includes perhaps a bit of horror. 
I had so many theories and so many great ideas for an ending, I even thought it was a Shakespeare re-telling of King Lear. What a disappointment.

I think the explanation at the end of the book why they were called bad liars was great, but it would have been better to include the scene of origin for this in the book so that we readers don't feel confused about it the whole time while reading.

Afterword
Before anyone says that the whole book copied other books (as one can see in her sketch for the book) I would disagree, as she only got Inspiration for a few aspects and didn't copy everything. I would call it Inspiration. And inspirations are great, they help you to get a better picture of how the story is supposed to be and might even motivate you. 

Her whole preparations are well organised and I very very much appreciate her for showing us them. It can help so many. Help them to start they own book one day. 

27. July 2024

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Cursing, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Blood, Dementia, Gaslighting, and Classism

Minor: Rape, Vomit, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Alcohol

The book also includes survivor guilt also known as KZ syndrome

s1ck4n's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Grief, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug use, and Alcohol

oliviastewart716's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I have so much to say about this and nothing to say about this at the same time. Just like, why would you right this? It wasn’t terrible, I just don’t know what the intention was here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Grief, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Abandonment

gjenn's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcoholism and Death of parent

jamarie's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked the speediness of this book. The short chapters ❤️ I'm seeing reviews that don't like the fractured writing but that's what got me in the first place. Despite the muddled, neurotic over-sentimentality, the writing didn't feel off-putting or clunky for me. At points I got some Merricat/WHALITC vibes. (Was that what E. Lockhart was going for, maybe?) Sometimes, I'm in the mood for this style idk. Also, maybe it's bc I'm a metiche chismosa but I was all in reading about the lazy, worse than parasites, rich, mentally stunted daughters and all the awful manipulation they did to their own kids to get their inheritance from the racist patriarch and the eventual self-destruction by the dumbest kids alive lmao. I guessed the plot twist ! and actually had a fun time reading this almost soap opera about racist white rich democrats (😬), but the ending was a little icky tho bc none of these characters deserve pity or second chances bc they didn't grow and I don't care about them becoming a "real" family.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Racism, Vomit, Dementia, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Self harm, and Death of parent

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Rape, Vomit, Death of parent, and Colonisation

g slur, homelessness, poaching.

rachelizx's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Racism, and Grief

Minor: Death of parent