that girl with a book

I’m a sucker for a core four. And here we have Cadence, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat. Cadence, Johnny, and Mirren are Sinclairs, which is a big deal, apparently. I think they’re rich… and famous for being rich? Great.

The Sinclairs all live on an island, Beechwood, over the summers. They have a house for each of the three daughters. I can’t remember the other two, but one was called Cuddledown which I lowkey loved. I want to live at Cuddledown.

We’re told the story from Cadence’s perspective. I had to refer back to the map and family tree at the beginning of the book more times that I would like to admit. Cadence narrates in a very flowery and poetic way. It took some getting used to. Every time she described her migraines, she said something along the lines of “a witch crawled up my skull and started stabbing me with a bloody knife.” And Cadence gets a lot of headaches. Apparently during Summer Fifteen, she smacked her head on something and got a big fat injury and can’t remember what happened.

Eventually, she convinces her mom to let her go back to Beechwood for Summer Seventeen. There, she reunites with Mirren, Johnny, and Gat. Gat, notably, is Indian, was invited to the island because his dad is dating Johnny’s mom, and is Cadence’s love interest. Cadence spends a lot of time being angry at Gat for leaving her during Summer Fifteen after her accident. But they start to come back together. Sort of. It’s still wishy-washy.

Eventually, Cadence starts putting together her memories. She realizes that she and “the Liars,” AKA, Mirren, Johnny, and Gat, purposefully set the main house of Beechwood on fire in an attempt to try to stop their parents from fighting over the inheritance. Cadence flips out because she realizes that that’s why the dogs are dead, but then is hit with the realization that Mirren, Johnny, and Gat all died in the fire too. That’s right, Cady’s been talking to ghosts all summer. No wonder her mom’s been on her ass about coming out of Cuddledown. Queen was hanging out there alone talking to her dead cousins and boyfriend.

The most compelling part of this book was the discussions between Cadence and Gat, and occasionally Mirren and Johnny, about wealth, whiteness, and the older Sinclairs’ obsessiveness with material things. Gat gives Cadence a reality check about not knowing the names of the housekeeper and chef(?) and points out that he is one of three people of color on the entire island. It becomes more and more obvious as Cadence regains her memories that her family never saw Gat as one of them. It makes sense why the Liars set the fire. Also, Cadence makes some lit jokes about her being on per*ocet.

I will say, this book was too long for the amount of content. It was written beautifully, and the imagery is stunning, but it is unfortunately my nature to start looking for action. I feel like a few more hints could have been thrown in there before the big reveal.

I did feel for Cadence though, losing the only companions she ever knew. You could tell she loved the other three, and it’s unsurprising that her trauma wouldn’t allow her to realize their deaths for a long time. It’s a sad, sad, story. The Sinclairs are sort of brought together by the deaths of Mirren, Johnny, and Gat, but I personally didn’t really care. So there’s that.

Live laugh love,

girlwithabook