E Lockhart - We Were Liars

Some books you can tell right from the start are going to be good, and We Were Liars is one of them. The first pages and chapters are full of promise, sparkling with short, lively sentences quickly establishing setting and character - particularly that of narrator Cadence (Cady) Sinclair Eastman, as she introduces the Sinclair family, establishing and signalling subversion of expectations more or less at once. How’s this for a first chapter (in its entirety):

   Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family.

   No one is a criminal.

   No one is an addict.

   No one is a failure.

   The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome. We are old-money Democrats. Our smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive.

   It doesn’t matter if divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle. It doesn’t matter if trust-fund money is running out; if credit card bills go unpaid on the kitchen counter. It doesn’t matter if there’s a cluster of pill bottles on the bedside table.

   It doesn’t matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love.

   So much in love that equally desperate measures must be taken.

   We are Sinclairs.

   No one is needy.

   No one is wrong.

   We live, at least in the summertime, on a private island off the coast of Massachusetts.

   Perhaps that is all you need to know.

The Liars - Cady, Johnny (he is bounce, effort, and snark), Mirren (she is sugar, curiosity, and rain) and Gat (contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee), whose arrival in summer eight precipitates their formation in the first place (the year when they were all eight; all are nearly the same age, with birthdays in the fall) - are memorable creations, and especially in the context of the wider Sinclair family; the overtones of fable and fairytale throughout are quite explicit and add another layer (which actually, now I think about it, is perhaps partial explanation for why the main characters feely oddly slightly under-developed despite their vividness).

So it works on those levels and also on multiple others: as evocation of young love, mystery story, and (in a way) narrative of self-discovery. And, through all that, it's involving and emotionally affecting - I wanted to know what would happen (and had happened) and the revelations reshaping my understanding of events, when they came, were powerful. There are times when the prose is maybe a little too precious - too YA - but it's as much about the character's voice as the author's and thoroughly forgivable. So, a big yes to this one.