Picture this: A rich family. Private East Coast island. Secrets & lies upon lies. If you haven’t read We Were Liars, don’t ask how it ends. You don’t want to know, and I won’t tell you the truth!

E. Lockhart’s Contemporary YA novel is a complete masterpiece in my opinion. I haven’t been this engrossed and then completely shocked by a novel in a very long time.

The book’s first success? The incredible dust jacket blurb. It immediately caught my attention, which the book didn’t relinquish until it was over! I hadn’t realized how impactful a good summary can be, but this book raised the bar.

Second success? Unique layout. If there is a way to master reader confusion and use it for good, We Were Liars did just that. The book lets you live in a mild state of disorientation, really making you question the reliability of the narrator, which is so important for the success of the story.

Now that I’ve hopefully sung my praises of this wonderful book enough, let’s jump into the cover-inspired mani!

Happiness is realizing you own the PERFECT colors that match the cover beautifully! This was the exact feeling I had when I fell in love with this book, this cover and now this manicure. I grabbed Essie‘s Fashion Playground (pretty minty green), Bikini So Teeny (perfect pale blue) and Blanc (whitest white) to create this ombre watercolor masterpiece!

The minty green of the water, blue of the sky and white clouds were the inspiration for my design choices. I grabbed a makeup sponge to create the gradient from green to blue. In my Shatter Me Cover-Inspired Manicure, I used the sponging technique as well, but I learned a lot more about what works and what doesn’t this time around.

I started off with a naked nail, as opposed to painting the base color like I’ve seen in other ombre tutorials. Next time I use this technique, I will for sure try it with the first color painted on the nail to start, because it took forever to get an opaque color!

I really wanted to emulate both the cover and the overarching feeling of the novel with this manicure. The cover depicts a hazy day, just as the story is told from a potentially unreliable narrator, making the truth seem clouded and confused. There is so much beauty, but it and the truth are just out of reach beyond the clouds.

I had a lot of fun creating the white splatter design to mirror the cover’s hazy clouds. Of course, I grabbed the technique straight from the source of all things nails and beauty, The Beauty Department. They have an awesome tutorial on how to make your nails look like turquoise stones, which I adjusted to work for this manicure.

I grabbed a plastic ziplock sandwich bag and ripped it down the seam, which created the perfect cloudy texture. From there, I painted the white polish on the bag and blotted the excess on a plate before dabbing on my nails. Before it completely dried, I brushed a top coat over the nails to soften the edges of the white design.

Have you read We Were Liars? Did it completely shock and surprise you like it did me? Happy Reading!