Cover Image: Family of Liars

Family of Liars

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I received this novel as an advanced reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. this prequel did not disappoint. Delving further into the world of the Sinclair family from we were liars was awesome and there are just as many mysteries and twists and turns as in the original. Highly recommend this- fans will be satisfied!!

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This prequel to "We Were Liars" didn't really need to be written. It wasn't as strong as "We Were Liars" and the beginning was quite confusing trying to sort out the characters and who was narrating. I think there was an assumption by Lockhart that the reader remembered a lot of "We Were Liars" (which I did not.) I loved the premise of living on a private island that was set up in "We Were Liars" but the joy and uniqueness of living on the island didn't come through in this book.

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I wasn't quite sure what I expected coming in to "Family of Liars." I both loved and hated "We Were Liars," because it was an incredible story and the plot twist broke my heart. I wanted it to be its own thing but still feel like the first book, and E. Lockhart absolutely delivered that.

I would say I still enjoyed the first book more, but the story and characters in this prequel were equally as compelling and creative. "We Were Liars" exploded on TikTok, so I know expectations will be high, and trust me when I say this was a 5/5 read. I could barely put it down and finished it within 24 hours of being sent the book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children, and thank you to E. Lockhart for this amazing return to the Sinclair family.

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Summer 1986; the youngest member of the Sinclair family, Rosemary, dies while swimming off the coast of the family's private island, Beechwood. Carrie Sinclair, the eldest sister, is deeply troubled by her family's response to Rosemary's death and their persistence to move on. She struggles to cope and turns to pills to dull her pain.

Summer 1987; the Sinclair Family returns to Beechwood; this time with their Uncle Dean and cousins, Yardley and Tomkin. With Yardley come three friends; George, her boyfriend, and his two friends, Major and Pfeff. Carrie immediately is smitten with Pfeff, but something lurks under his suave persona. Rosemary has also returned to visit Carrie and their mother, but Tipper rejects her as Carrie learns the secret of who she is and where she fits amongst the Sinclairs. This is the story of Caroline Lennox Taft Sinclair and how she became a liar.

Family of Liars is a beautiful prequel to We Were Liars (2014). Readers learn about the Sinclair family before the sisters inherited Beechwood, and how they became the liars that they all are. I found this novel easier to read than the first because the format, although still aetherial, was not as difficult to follow between the stories and the "story". This is a fabulous novel that stands with and alone from We Were Liars.

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Name of Book: Family of Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Genre: YA/Thriller
Publisher: Random House Children’s ~ Delacorte Press
Pub Date: May 3, 2022
My Rating: 3 Stars

I actually read " We were Liars" twice! When I first read it in 2015 ~ I loved it! Then it was selected for Book Club discussion. SO I reread it and I picked up on so many small things I missed in the first read ~
Now reading the reviews on this prequel I see there are very mixed feeling ~ it seems a lot of readers have a love/hate relationship with the ‘liars’!
But. . … I was really anxious for another round with the Sinclair Family…So here I go again!
Additionally was looking forward to Ms. Lockard shocking me again!!!

Hmm not sure if shocked it the correct word~ True this story had some big shoes to fill.

But have to say I liked WWL better.
Perhaps I will suggest this for book club discussion as “We Were Liars” certainly was a great discussion.

Want to thank NetGalley and Random House Children’s ~ Delacorte Press for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for May 3, 2022.

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“What’s the worst thing you did?”
Before the events of We Were Liars, there was another generation spending summers on the island. And there are more haunting Sinclair family secrets.

Family of Liars is told from the perspective of Carrie, the oldest of the four…well, I guess three… Sinclair sisters.
I loved the writing style and how you could feel where Carries headspace is at. She was well written and I could relate to her a lot. I loved how each setting was described with attention to detail. It made the book seem more real and I could play it like a movie in my head.
The occasional fairytale story was refreshing and helps readers to better understand the dynamic between characters.

As a whole, I enjoyed this book more than We Were Liars. There is more going on throughout the whole story that kept me intrigued. However, the insane plot twist from We Were Liars is still my favorite.

Family of Lairs can be read as a stand-alone novel, but does contain spoilers for We Were Liars.

Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for this ARC!

5 Stars

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A great prequel. Every question you had about the prior book, this answers. I don’t know how they did it with me and even more compelling story. I was immediately drawn in and read it rapidly. I absolutely recommend it. I can’t wait to read it again.

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I couldn’t be so excited to start the prequel of one of the most mind blowing, shocking, surprising stories I’ve ever read!

“We were liars” hit me real hard with its sucker punch twist I didn’t see it coming. With this prequel we get a closer look of the parents of three liars: the story’s narrator is Johnny’s mother Caroline: promising ghost of her son to tell a story that only sisters know about. She did something back in the past and she is finally ready to share her secret which also open a lot of can of worms because it seems like becoming part of Sinclair family means pretending, lying, acting, keeping everything to yourself, showing no weakness even though you slowly get torn into pieces inside just like Caroline has been doing for years!

We return back private island belongs to Sinclair family ancestors where is off the coast of Massachusetts.

In the summer of 1985, Caroline has so much on her plate: dealing with the grief of drowning 10 years old sister Rosemary whose ghost starts visiting her as her beautiful and self absorbed sisters Bee and Penelope already moved on with her lives, flirting with boys, enjoying summer, pretending nothing tragic happened just like her parents do.

Caroline’s painful face surgery that reshaped her bone structure heals with the help of drugs but Caroline’s addiction to those pills gets out of control, resulting with stealing her parents’ pills to sleep tight at the night.

When their uncle Dean, her favorite cousin and her best friend Yardley show up with surprise guests with them including Yardley’s boyfriend George and his friends from school Major and Pfeff, things eventually change and their summer vacation gets heated!

Pfeff’s flirting with Caroline, giving a romantic first kiss in the moonlight, awakes so many foreign feelings and pure excitement Caroline has never felt before.

But things uncontrollably change as Caroline finds herself surrounded by web of lies, betrayals, secrets! Only way to survive at that haunted summer and become a part of family mean she has to learn how to lie and how to pretend like all Sinclairs do all the time.

This tragic, gripping, well written, thought provoking story, heart wrenching, twisty story will deeply affect you and shake you to the core!

Most of the characters including sisters of Caroline were dislikable. I think I mostly loved Yardley: she’s smart, confident and devoted friend who stood up for Caroline and I think I cannot say no to another prequel to learn more about her story evolved.

This book doesn’t have a jaw dropping twist but it’s a sensitive psychological and realistic fiction that portraits an unforgettable dysfunctional family.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s / Delacorte Press for sharing this one of the most anticipated books’ digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

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This was honestly so well done. I read we are liars by Lockhart years ago. I fell in love with the characters and the writing. I cried multiple times and I feel like the memories came back once I started reading family of liars. This was honestly great. It was again an emotional read and one I’ll remember always - just like we were liars! 5/5 stars

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We Were Liars was a suspense-filled book that kept me wondering how the mystery would be solved. Family of Liars was disappointing when compared to the original. It is a new summer and a new set of circumstances, but the mystery isn’t there. Readers discover what happened relatively early on and the mystery is the why behind the episode. The author’s note does warn that this is a prequel and spoilers will be given to the original story, but overall this story was not as good as We Were Liars. I wanted to have a five-star adventure, but sadly it was only a three-star read.

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If you liked We Were Liars, then you need to read Family of Liars to see where it all began. The Sinclair family takes us back to a summer from the past on a private Massachusetts island. With an unforgivable story of betrayal and dreadful mistakes another generation of Sinclair’s will keep you intrigued till the end.

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Absolutely loved this book. It was intriguing and had me captivated as soon as I started reading. I had a hard time putting the book down when I needed to be sleeping instead. This book has the fun of summer with a very exciting twist of events.

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This is likely just not a book for me, but I could not get into it. I'm guessing it picks up at some point and I might try again one day, but the first chunk was so hard to get interested in that I stopped reading.

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Ooh I really liked this! I remembered liking We Were Liars when it came out but at the time I have to admit I hadn't given too much thought to the generation of moms/aunts, but this was very compelling. It made me realize that I only barely remembered the events of We Were Liars so I went back and re-read that and this did make me think more about that generation but there really weren't many specific call-backs to this, but it tracks that this family would create those kids. like yes this is a little melodramatic I suppose but the prose is beautiful and I enjoyed reading it!

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Wow! It was so interesting to read this book after not having liked the first book. This is a 4.5 stars for me. I enjoyed so much about this book. I feel as though I can't say too much without ruining it, but I will do my best.
Fantastic characters and the way the story flowed worked out perfectly. I loved that the narrator was sharing a story with her son about her own youth. There was so much wrapped up in that story of the summer when Carrie was 17 and the terrible things her and her sisters got into, but it wasn't what I had expected at all.
Lockhart did such a wonderful job of developing these deep and flawed characters. And the relationship between Carrie, Penny and Bess was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. The Sinclair family had experienced so much loss and pain and you can see Carrie struggling to make sense of everything throughout the book. It almost seems as though Carrie is forever living in both the past and present and constantly battling so much heartache.
If you didn't like the first book in this series, I think you should still give this one a shot. It was so worth it.

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Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Delacorte for this eARC.

I always think E. Lockhart's books are interesting, and this fits right in. It's been a while since I read <i>We Were Liars</i>, and I think for most people, this could stand alone (though this one should absolutely be read second). Also, though dark things do happen in these books, I do wish I could summer somewhere. That sounds really nice.

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Did I not like the first one? Yeah. Did I still decided to read this one? Correct. Was it better? Maybe, but only slightly. I’d did take me like 30% of the book to figure out which characters from we were liars that we were following.

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Family of Liars
by E. Lockhart
Pub Date: May 3, 2022
Delacorte
*Young Adult * Mystery
Prequel to We Were Liars
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I wanted to like this book, but I didn't like We Were Liars so why did I think I would?
3 stars

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This will definitely be a #booktok book!

While this book was not my favorite, it was, in fact, better that “We Were Liars”. I did not like We Were Liars. The story was very superficial and did not go in depth into the characters or anything.

But “Family of Liars” did better. We got to see a POV of Carrie, Johnny’s mother, and her time on the island growing up with her sisters. There is a plot twist, but it was a bit predictable.

However, I liked Carrie’s character. While I am not privileged like her, I related more to her. She spoke her mind, she didn’t roll over and accept her situations.

Overall, this book was good. 3.25/5

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Thanks to Delacorte and NetGalley for an advaced copy of Family of Liars to review! We Were Liars made such a splash on TikTok last year; I was excited to read the prequel! If you loved We Were Liars, you'll definitely enjoy getting more background on the Sinclair family. Even if they're not a particularly likeable family overall.

The writing style of this is much the same as We Were Liars, with short chapters and a lot of dialog. Honestly, Lockhart is just great at capturing teen dialog. The conversations flow easily between characters and help to move the plot forward quickly. While the characters might not be the most likeable characters, you're still invested in their story. 

Like with We Were Liars, there are plot twists abound in this book. While I found them a little predictable, they still add a sense of intensity to the story overall. From the beginning, there's an air of mystery of what's going to happen on the island over the summer. You know something will happen, but it's not immediately clear what. Lockhart is an expert at keeping that air of mystery, even without making it totally obvious. However, I did think the book took a little too long to find it's narrative voice. The voice didn't really pick up until about halfway through the book.

Overall, if you enjoy summer themed mysteries, you'll definitely enjoy this book! Especially if We Were Liars is one of your favorites.

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