Oh man, this book.
I guess I should warn you - potential spoilers and stuff. Not really much of a concern with this one, though.
Anyway, moving on.
I read this book in under twenty-four hours. It is a fast-paced mystery that sucks you in. It might be a more effective form of quicksand.
The main character of the book is Cadence Sinclair Eastman. She is a member of the prestigious and vastly wealthy Sinclair family. It is a family where everyone is perfect - successful, beautiful, normal. Or, at least, they're supposed to be.
Oh, and white. Did I forget to mention white?
The Sinclairs spend their summers on Beechwood, the private island owned by the family off the coast of Massachusetts. That's right - they have their own god damned PRIVATE ISLAND.
That is how disgustingly rich they are.
For the oldest children - Cady, John, Mirren, and tag-along friend Gat - summer on the island is sacred. These cousins and friends spend the whole year living far apart. Summers on Beechwood are when they can be together and be truly, simplistically happy.
And as children, they don't know that that happiness is a facade. They don't know how truly awful their family dynamics are. They can't understand why their parents break apart and their fathers leave them.
After all - this is the Sinclair family. They are grand and well-bred and well-monied. Who wouldn't want to be part of it?
But after the summer when the oldest children are fifteen, everything changes.
Cady has an accident that she can't remember. She is found naked and shivering on the beach, half-submerged in water. Memory loss takes nearly the entirety of the summer away from her. She doesn't understand why her cousins won't speak to her, or why no one will tell her what happened. The accident has left her with untreatable migraines that slowly destroy her will to live. They are explosive and indescribably painful. Doctors can find no brain trauma, but there is clearly something very wrong with her.
Her father wants to take her traveling for the summer, but Cady refuses. She misses her cousins and Gat and Beechwood. She is seventeen now, and missed all of the previous summer on the island due to her illness. She gets permission to spend four weeks of summer vacation there, and is determined to use that time to find out what everyone is hiding from her.
Let me just say that I had so many theories about where this story would go, and I'm usually right with at least one of my guesses. One of my guesses was half right. The plot really does keep you on your toes. And the resolution of the story, where Cady regains her memories and realizes what's happened, is absolutely, 1000% heartbreaking. Like, sob so hard there's snot running into your mouth desolation.
But the book is worth it. It's so, so worth it.
This book is about a family that literally burns itself to the ground through its obsession with greed. Only when the youngest generation stands up and tries to change things do they even realize what horrible people they are. And even then, many of the family members still don't fully understand.
The title also doesn't mean that they were liars in the traditional sense - it's not like they fabricated fantastical stories about their lives or lied to people to get what they wanted. They were liars because they were lying about their reality, about who they were as people. In the Sinclair family, you have to be fucking perfect, and on Beechwood Island, reality is suspended in favor of a rich utopia where everyone gets along and is normal.
Always be normal.
They were lying to themselves about having flaws and being human and feeling emotions. That really is the worst kind of lying there is. And in the end, it proved tragic for them all.
I can't say enough how beautifully written this book is. At times it is almost poetry, and the imagery and metaphor used by Lockhart are wonderful. When Cady bleeds all over Gat, she isn't actually bleeding all over him, but pouring out her heart and sharing her emotions. And I love that. I think that is such an amazing way of saying you have feelings to express, and they are so strong, so vitally a part of you, that when you let them out, it feels as though life is leaving your body.
This book really is wonderfully and powerfully written. It is a mystery and a tragedy with aspects of the supernatural and romance and contemporary fiction. It is about grief and greed and family.
Why else should you read it? Because John Green endorsed the shit out of it. And he's a pretty awesome dude.
Read it. Trust me.
I give this book 5/5 stars. No contest.
