Spare and Poetic
We Were Liars is a short book with short chapters—some are no more than half a page long, and none are longer than three pages. Most of the story is written in your standard prose style, with complete sentences and paragraphs and such, but Lockhart occasionally writes in poem form. Describing fairytales, Cadence says:
So many have the same premise: once upon a time, there were three.
Three of something:
Three pigs,
Three bears,
Three brothers,
Three soldiers,
Three billy goats.
Three Princesses. (16.2-9)
Then there are the sentence fragments, and the use of nouns as adjectives. Take, for instance, Cadence's description of Gat:
Gat seemed spring-loaded. Like he was searching for something. He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. (4.33)
Lockhart plays with form a lot in We Were Liars, all in the service of artful description. She varies her style and plays with standard word usage, which makes us suspect that she, like Cadence, likes a twist of meaning.