Bite-sized book reviews
Bite-sized book reviews
I’m not sure how this ended up on my To Read list. I didn’t realize it was YA until I was a good chunk into listening. Not that there’s anything wrong with YA, it’s just rare when I love a YA novel. This book is narrated by Cadence, a teen from a wealthy family who own a private island off the coast of Massachusetts where they summer. (I wouldn’t mind being in a position in my own life where I can use “summer” as a verb. Feels so high class doesn’t it?) Cadence, her two cousins, and a step-cousin of sorts, make up “the liars”. Best friends, all the same age, and all from the same family so they can relate to each other, unlike anyone else. The book feels a little choppy and I kept feeling confused, then I realized that was a purposeful narrative device used to illustrate Cadence’s own amnesia. The summer of age 15 was wonderful, like all the other summers, but you start to piece together that she must’ve suffered some accident towards the end because she can’t remember anything else from that summer or much of the year afterward. Now she’s back on the island at age 17 and trying to put the puzzle of her disconnected memory together. As the reader you get clues from Cadence’s mom, aunts, grandpa, and cousins and start to make coherent sense along pace with Cadence. I did enjoy a lot of the prose, for example this line: “I used to be blond, but now my hair is black. I used to be strong, but now I am weak. I used to look pretty, but now I look sick. It is true I suffer from migraines since my accident. It is true I do not suffer fools.” The mystery becomes darker and darker as things fall into place with a twist at the end that ties it together. If you like YA and mysteries, I’d say go for it; if you’re luke warm on YA, then skip this one.