Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person
We get the details in We Were Liars straight from Cadence, pulling us inside her mind as she struggles to navigate it. She begins the book by telling us who she is in as straightforward a way as possible:
My full name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.
I live in Burlington, Vermont, with Mummy and three dogs.
I am nearly eighteen. (2.1-3)
She goes on to detail her possessions (or lack thereof), her hair color, what her dad does for a living, and what her house looks like. The fact that she calls her mom "Mummy" tells us that she's patrician—it's a decidedly rich-kid way of speaking. She's not moving into her Harvard dorm quite yet, but we suspect from how she talks that she will be soon.
Importantly, Cadence isn't the most reliable narrator. She's suffered a head injury, and with everyone refusing to tell her what happened two summers back, she's left to try to piece events together the best she can on her own. She gets there eventually, but since we're stuck in her head, we never know more than she does. Fortunately, while she readily shares bits and pieces of information as she finds them, she keeps the migraines all to herself.