Book Review: We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart
A return to the world of We Were Liars, We Fell Apart is directly after the fire in We Were Liars that changed everything. Following all new characters and all new twists, check out my full review for We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart below!
Book Information
Matilda has just graduated high school, her mother has ditched her to move to Mexico with her boyfriend, and now Matilda feels like she has no family left. When the father she never knew about emails asking to see her, Matilda jumps at the chance to meet her father. Not only that, but he is a famous artist whose paintings sell for millions. But when she gets to his home, he isn’t there. She meets her half brother, his friends, and has many adventures. The longer her dad doesn’t show up, though, the more Matilda thinks that something is either wrong with him, or fundamentally wrong with her.
Review | Heidi Dischler
Of course, I had to read Family of Liars and We Fell Apart in light of the new Amazon TV series for We Were Liars. The only thing that really sucked about it? None of the other books lived up to how amazing We Were Liars was.
With We Fell Apart, I was honestly just so bored. I didn’t care much for the characters, didn’t care for the story, and honestly didn’t really feel shocked by the twists at the end. The writing style is basically the same as We Were Liars and Family of Liars, so the writing style is one of the only things I truly loved.
With the characters, I didn’t feel super attached to Matilda. Meer felt absurdly immature. Brock was just… there most of the time. And Tatum? Probably the most interesting of the bunch, but the subplot of his romance with Matilda didn’t draw me in at all. Matilda’s father, Kingsley, was supposed to be this mysterious character, but he and June just ended up ticking me off. June especially because ew. She just made me so mad with her levity and disinterest her own family. I understand she was going through it, but jeez. Her “I have no rules but these are my rules” attitude made me SO MAD.
With the story, you basically follow Matilda around as she gets to know Meer, Brock, and Tatum. You don’t meet Kingsley and that’s what Matilda is hung up on. There’s moments where they mention the Sinclairs, but it’s not enough for me to have wanted to read this novel by itself knowing what I know now. Thank goodness it was semi short because I really had a hard time concentrating on the story since not much went on at all.
And the twists? Yeah, I could’ve called most of them from a mile away.
Spoilers ahead.
Kingsley is related to Harrison. Holland is basically Matilda’s cousin. Kingsley dies because of his dementia (which wasn’t necessarily expected, but as soon as you saw the state he was in, it was kind of a given). So, yeah. That’s basically it. Not satisfying in my opinion.
Overall, if you’ve come this far you can tell that I really didn’t like the book. I gave it two stars on socials, but I almost feel like that was being generous to a point. I love E. Lockhart’s writing style and it’s still beautiful in this book, but it felt more like she and her publishers were trying to capitalize on the fact that the TV show was getting released. What they should’ve focused on instead was good storytelling 🙃. Sorry for all the mega fans out there, but this one was just disappointing in my opinion.
Source: Audiobook from Libby Public Library
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
