to clear things up because i have inadvertently hurt the map loving community and if i get one more comment about it i’m gonna start biting : there’s nothing inherently wrong with maps in books !! but this map being of a very simplistic island with art that’s stylized in a very childish way made it feel like it was directed toward a much younger audience ! that was what the comparison to a series of unfortunate events was meant to convey 💔 no hate to lemony snicket he was just the first middle grade author i could think of okay please forgive me

They're called the liars and not just the cousins bc then she would've had to title the book "We Were Cousins"

Ironically the idea of a rich girl trying to rebel against her family and instead causing this horrible tragedy she now has to cope with is a brilliant idea

I just know Cadences hair is splotchy black box dyed and her eyebrows are still very blonde

I like the idea of her cousins saying that it wasn't her fault in the sense that she is actually just so against taking any accountability that she literally hallucinates her involuntary manslaughter victims ridding her of any guilt, but I suppose that'd take a much better book to achieve.

The way E Lockhart could've just made Gat the son of the one of the workers on the island and created such a more interesting dynamic

"in fact, when did you get so pretty?" sounds like a 46yo man going thru midlife crisis trying to hit up his high school crush after watching a dozen of those pick up artist videos

obsessed with the gradient of the artwork on the wall being aligned with the light source btw. thats so pretty

I agree that the author seems to think the readers are stupid. But seeing how about 700,000 people gave this book a 4 or 5 star on Goodreads, I think maybe she's right.

her cold patriarchal grandpa saying about cadance "she has a good head on her shoulders", looking back, sounds like he was convinced that she killed her cousins intentionally to get the inheritance and he is proud about that. Which honestly, would have probably made for a more interesting story. Maybe she didn't want her spoiled cousins to get the inheritance, bc she could do so much more with it to help people who need it more. "Eat the rich even when they are your kin" kinda story xD

Unlocked a memory where I read this entire book on wattpad where all the characters were swapped out with members of one direction. Ngl that was a good summer

dude the racism in this book has my jaw on the FLOOR like what do you MEAN "jungle animal" 😭😭😭

I will say as someone whose chronic illnesses came out of seemingly nowhere at 18 and disrupted my entire life, I can sympathize with her repeatedly bringing it up. Is it contradictory? Yes. Of course, you want to be not just seen as your illness,  but at the same time, you are trying so hard to show people what you don't even understand, and feel like they couldn't possibly understand. Your life changing like that makes you angry and makes you think that no one has possibly gone through that. So ironically if the author did nothing else right, I think she did an okay job of displaying that angst. Immature as it is.

A youtuber I don’t know talking about a book I never read? I am SAT.

“Gyatt, my gyatt”

the moment when she is back to island and older cousins dont meet her but wave from the distance was so painfully obvious

this book literally pulled me out of a year long reading slump because it was so bad i needed to read something good to make up for it

I know it’s like this for the drama of the reveal, but there’s something to be said about how cadence remembered the dogs’ deaths before gat’s and her cousins’ lol. like a parallel to how she cared so much about the ivory statues but apparently never cared about the human staff on the island.

hold up. was that supposed to be foreshadowing???

there’s dots here, idk if they should be connected but im connecting them

“this book thinks you’re stupid” oh well the book is right

Other than the plot twist, the main thing I remember about this book is how it starts with Cadence saying “I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools” and then congratulating herself for the wordplay