Reading Thursday

E. Lockhart's "We Were Liars" is being marketed so heavily as a book with an astounding twist in it. I think that's a mistake. I think almost any book is better when you're looking at it as a whole thing that holds together in a certain way, and not just the packaging for the astounding twist.

Also because the astounding twist is... reasonably easy to guess if you're on your toes trying to guess the astounding twist. I will go through it later, I think, in detective mode, but much like I guessed the twist of a certain movie because "dead all along" is one of the basic fundamental types of twist, I think it takes an alert reader who's familiar with the vocabulary of twist endings.

(I didn't guess. I didn't read it in detective mode, which made it a more enjoyable read).

I hope to eventually corner someone who's read the book (it doesn't come out till May, so I may have to be patient) to talk about to what extent that ending worked, or didn't.

( not spoilers but )

But can I instead talk about everything else that's good in the book? E. Lockhart being smart again about well-off WASPy families, and what the upper echelons of privilege look like, and how it's the kind of thing that can rot, or collapse. Smart about the intersections of love, and power, and grief. Sharp, almost minimalistic writing, that reminds me of Ann Beattie as much as it reminds me of anything in current trendy YA. The fairy tales woven into the story (and King Lear, too -- being the story of an aging patriarch with three daughters...)

I'm definitely glad I read it but I'm not entirely sure it was the E. Lockhart book I've been waiting for since Frankie Landau-Banks.