We Were Liars: Part Three

by E. Lockhart
Something terrible happened on the private island where Cadence and her family spend their summers — but Cadence can't remember what it was. When she returns to the island, Cadence begins to uncover the truth.


Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. sleek
    having a smooth, gleaming surface reflecting light
    Instead of the Victorian six-bedroom with the wraparound porch and the farmhouse kitchen, instead of the house where Granddad spent every summer since forever, I see a sleek modern building perched on a rocky hill.
  2. vice
    moral weakness
    Gat says he is going to make hot tea and hot tea is his new vice.
  3. presumably
    by reasonable assumption
    Presumably you were reading, playing games on the iPad, choosing clothes. What do you remember?
  4. hypothermia
    subnormal body temperature
    I was diagnosed with hypothermia, respiratory problems, and a brain injury that never showed on the scans.
  5. victim
    an unfortunate person who suffers from adverse circumstances
    Did I really have a head injury from the swim, or did something else happen? Could someone have hit me earlier? Was I the victim of some crime?
  6. resolve
    reach a decision
    I resolve that everything I learn in the next four weeks will go above my Windemere bed.
  7. emerge
    become known or apparent
    Maybe a picture will emerge from the pixels.
  8. obligation
    the social force that binds you to a course of action
    She says how long it’s been since the aunts have seen me, how the littles are my cousins, too, after all. I have family obligations.
  9. reproachful
    expressing disapproval, blame, or disappointment
    “I wrote you a lot,” I say. It comes out reproachful.
  10. bond
    create social or emotional ties
    Plus she lectured me about bonding with Granddad and the littles. I have to connect with the family. Put on a smile.
  11. unstable
    disposed to psychological variability
    I am not someone to pity, with an unstable mind and weird pain syndromes.
  12. principle
    a rule or standard especially of good behavior
    I am taking charge of my life. I live according to my principles. I take action and make sacrifices.
  13. manipulative
    skillful in influencing others to one's own advantage
    “Why say suboptimal? Why not say what you really are? Thoughtless and confusing and manipulative?”
  14. severe
    extremely plain and simple
    He opens the door to his study. It’s as severe as the rest of the house. A laptop sits in the center of a large desk. A large window looks out over the Japanese garden. A chair. A wall of shelves, completely empty.
  15. opulent
    rich and superior in quality
    It feels clean and open, but it isn’t spartan, because everything is opulent.
  16. apparition
    a ghostly appearing figure
    Bonnie reads a book called Collective Apparitions: Fact and Fiction.
  17. optimal
    most desirable possible under a restriction
    “I’m always optimal,” says Johnny. “Just not the kind of optimal Mirren wants me to be.”
  18. capacity
    a specified function
    I am not taking up tennis again just because I played one single afternoon, and in no capacity do I ever want to hit with Mummy.
  19. hover
    hang, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing
    She will wear a tennis skirt and praise me and caution me and hover over me until I’m unkind to her.
  20. estate
    everything you own; all of your assets and liabilities
    “I’ll relax when the estate is settled.”
  21. kleptomaniac
    someone with an irrational urge to steal
    “Bonnie and Liberty are disasters. I think they’re kleptomaniacs now.”
  22. impulse
    an instinctive motive
    “You could die. You could get hurt. If you are terrified, there’s probably a good reason. You should trust your impulses.”
  23. betray
    disappoint, abandon, or prove undependable to
    A brute beneath a pleasant surface, betraying his kindness in letting me come to his sheltered island every year—I’ve betrayed him by seducing his Catherine, his Cadence.
  24. solitary
    lacking companions or companionship
    There was very little reason for her to get up, so solitary was she.
  25. disdain
    lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike
    "He is only a mouse!" cried the king in disdain, while the queen screamed and ran from the throne room in fear.
  26. suspicion
    doubt about someone's honesty
    Indeed, the entire kingdom, from royalty to servants, viewed the mouse suitor with suspicion and discomfort.
  27. masquerade
    pretend to be someone or something that you are not
    “He is unnatural," people said of him. "An animal masquerading as a person."
  28. disoriented
    having lost your bearings
    “But Bess doesn’t want me driving the motorboat alone. She says I could get disoriented.”
  29. ambition
    a cherished desire
    He would say it when advising us to pursue our ambitions.
  30. privileged
    not subject to usual rules or penalties
    Now, at the breakfast table, watching him eat my toast, “Don’t take no for an answer” seemed like the attitude of a privileged guy who didn’t care who got hurt, so long as his wife had the cute statues she wanted to display in her summerhouses.
  31. eulogy
    a formal expression of praise for someone who has died
    After I read that, I always thought about my own funeral. Like, what kind of flowers and where I’d want my ashes. And the eulogy, too, saying how I was transcendentally awesome and won the Nobel Prize and the Olympics.
  32. morbid
    suggesting an unhealthy mental state
    “You should plan your wedding, not your funeral. Don’t be morbid.”
  33. unrequited
    not returned in kind
    When I let my thoughts go there—if for a moment Johnny and Mirren are out of sight, if for even a second we are alone—the sharp pain of unrequited love invites the migraine in.
  34. pretentious
    creating an appearance of importance or distinction
    “He’s a pretentious ass. I love him like a brother, but you’re too good for him. Go find yourself a nice Vermont guy with muscles like Drake Loggerhead.”
  35. sympathy
    sharing the feelings of others, especially sorrow or anguish
    “You have a life stretching out in front of you with a million possibilities,” Gat says. “It—it grates on me when you ask for sympathy, that’s all.”
  36. ungrateful
    not feeling or showing gratitude
    “I know I have plenty of money and a good education. Food on the table. I’m not dying of cancer. Lots of people have it much worse than I. And I do know I was lucky to go to Europe. I shouldn’t complain about it or be ungrateful.”
  37. contradiction
    opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas
    “But the thing that makes me really messed up is the contradiction: when I’m not hating myself, I feel righteous and victimized. Like the world is so unfair.”
  38. alternate
    serving or used in place of another
    In Charmed Life, that book I gave Gat, there are parallel universes in which different events have happened to the same people. An alternate choice has been made, or an accident has turned out differently.
  39. duplicate
    a copy that corresponds to an original exactly
    Everyone has duplicates of themselves in these other worlds.
  40. humiliation
    state of disgrace or loss of self-respect
    Set out he did, for the mouseling had seen enough of courtly life to know that should he stay home he would always be a dirty secret, a source of humiliation to his mother and anyone who knew of him.
Created on Wed Mar 09 14:01:04 EST 2016 (updated Wed Dec 12 11:59:36 EST 2018)

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