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[frelling_tralk]

Anyone else read We Were Liars, and if so what did you think of the ending?

A couple of things bothered me about it. Firstly that the plan was soooo stupid for four supposedly intelligent 15 year olds. It seemed more like something that 10 year olds might miscalculate, but surely at their age they should have known to spread the accelerant first, and then all get together on the ground floor to start the fire and race out of there as a group. Forgetting that the dogs were locked in upstairs was a realistic tragedy that I could buy that they would forget in the heat of the moment, but deciding that one of them should start a fire from the basement, the others should start a fire from the first and second floors, and then being shocked that they then got trapped when the fire started to spread?! Of course only the person on the ground floor would have escaped from a house socked in gasoline, I found it hard to buy that none of them raised any concerns about their plan not being so well thought-out

Also I found it hard to buy that there wouldn't have been ANY consequences for the fire. No matter how rich and well-connected the grandfather was, surely questions would have been asked when the fire brigade noticed all of the gasoline and realised that it was arson? I can't believe that the other parents would just accept what was done to their children and agree to the cover-up, especially Gat's parents who would surely want to know more about how he died? It just seemed to be presented in the end as the sisters and grandfather having learnt the lesson and blaming themselves for the tragedy, deciding to let Cadence escape criminal charges and say no more about any of it, but does life really work like that? And Cadence seemed to be forgiving herself by the end of the book (!), but I wonder what sentence someone would have faced in the real world for killing three other children in an arson attack like that

Comments

[molly_may]

I read it, and I agree with everything you said. The plan seemed way too dumb and careless for four supposedly intelligent teenagers. I mean, I know teens can be dumb and careless, but not all four of them, not when it comes to a plan this poorly conceived. I didn't even buy what happened to the dogs - sure, one or two of them could forget about the dogs, but all four of them? (And it probably doesn't say much for the human characters that I was most upset about the dogs when I got to the big reveal of what happened!) I agree too that it doesn't make sense that Gat's parents weren't around insisting on knowing what happened. I did kind of hand-wave over the lack of investigation or consequences regarding the arson, though, just because I figured the local investigators were probably strongly influence/bribed by Cady's grandfather.

It felt like a book where everything was built around the Big Twist, but the Big Twist itself was so clumsily executed that it brought down the rest of the book.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I mean, I know teens can be dumb and careless, but not all four of them, not when it comes to a plan this poorly conceived.

That's what I couldn't get past, that Gat was otherwise presented as reasonably intelligent, yet he thought that it was a goods idea to throw gasoline everywhere and then start the fire while he was still in the basement

In general the writing of Cadence didn't strike me as being that of a 17 year old at all. Obviously the others were all stuck as Cadence remembered them, but they didn't really strike me as having the maturity of 15 year olds even either. Maybe a little more with Gat, but I would have put Johnny and Mirren at 13/14 years if I hadn't have known the age that they were supposed to be, although I suppose you can handwave that as Cadence's mental trauma and her memories of them not making for a very reliable narrator

And I figured that the grandfather had used his power and resources to hide what really happened, it just didn't seem to be something that you could that easily cover-up when three children had died. I thought it was odd actually that neither of her aunt's seemed to blame Cadence for what happened and had any questions for her, apparently they all just accepted that the children were in on the plan together and so Cadence shouldn't be blamed for it, but surely one of the parents should have held a grudge? The idea seemed to be that the tragedy had solved their bickering by having them all come together to protect Cadence from finding out what really happened before she was ready, but in reality all of the children dying except for one would have made things even more bitter and twisted between the sisters I would have thought

[molly_may]

I thought it was odd actually that neither of her aunt's seemed to blame Cadence for what happened and had any questions for her, apparently they all just accepted that the children were in on the plan together and so Cadence shouldn't be blamed for it, but surely one of the parents should have held a grudge?

YES. That was another thing that struck me as really false. Even in a best-case scenario, it seems like the aunts would have been pushing as hard as possible for Cadence to get her memory back so that they could know the truth of what happened, but more realistically it seems like they would have been incredibly (understandably) angry and bitter and not at all interested in protecting Cadence's fragile mental state considering that their own children were dead.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

And it would have been a good opportunity to throw in some further hints to read back over after the reveal, if the sisters had been a bit off with Cadence and thrown off weirdly bitter vibes at her "convenient" memory loss, instead they all just seemed to be presented as one big happy family for that summer... They were presented as being so self-serving and ruthless over their competition for the estate though, and their threats to their children for not playing along, that it just didn't seem at all plausible for the three sisters (as well as the grandfather) to apparently all accept that it was solely the adults fault that their children came up with a plan to burn down the house and only one came out alive.

[myfriendamy.livejournal.com]

ha, I really loved this book. I hadn't really thought about it like you did, I guess the thematic considerations of the book were more important to me. But...tbh I would never underestimate people's ability to conceive of stupid plans ;)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

The twist did really shock me, I had to go back and re-read a lot of it to check that it all made sense lol, and that part did. (Did you take from it that they were ghosts or hallucinations btw because I just assumed that they were Cadence's minds way of figuring it all out, but I've read some reviews since where people seem to be taking them as intended to be literal ghosts?)

I just couldn't help but nitpick their terrible plan to all start a fire separately, realistically at least one of them should have been aware that drenching their surroundings in gasoline would = huge danger to trap yourself in the basement or upper floors at the speed that the fire would start spreading. They should have struck and thrown the match when they were all together by the front door exit, and then hightailed it out of there