An Evaluation of E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars The need to be perfect with impractically high standards can cause people's worlds to crumble under pressure. E. Lockhart shows just this in her suspenseful novel, We Were Liars. The story is about a wealthy family with high expectations and an image to uphold. The Sinclairs own a private island off the coast of Massachusetts that they visit every summer, but one summer there was a terrible accident that left the main character with a brain injury. The main character is Cadence. She is the oldest Sinclair grandchild. Due to the brain injury, she cannot remember almost anything from that summer, including the unfortunate incident. The book unravels the mysterious accident from Cadence's point of view. In this thrilling novel, Lockhart does an exemplary job …show more content…
Purification through flames” (1993). The book backs up the characters' means by giving insight into the characters’ reasoning, describing the house as “the seat of the patriarchy” (Lockhart 197), and showing that the characters believed the perfect solution to their problems was to burn the house down as it is a “symbol of everything wrong” (Lockhart 196). However, when burning down the house, the plan went wrong, and Cadence, the main character, was the only one to make it out alive. The accident was a catastrophic result of wanting change from the straining environment. Furthermore, the author builds on the characters' tragedy to bridge the disconnect between the reader and the sometimes unrelatable wealthy elite by evoking strong feelings of empathy for the results of such a tragic loss. It also teaches a valuable lesson as to what can happen when children under the constraints of familial pressure are pushed too far. Although We Were Liars showed what could happen as a result of a consuming life, it can be unrealistic, making it harder for the reader to connect with the story. The Sinclairs are part of the wealthy