I really enjoyed this prequel to "We Were Liars"! "We Were Liars" blew my mind, and while this one was not quite as twisty, I still enjoyed it!

Was excited to be Emily's conversation partner for this book at her launch. What an amazing follow up to We Were Liars! Always infuriating to read these books while stuck in the city...the setting is so incredibly vivid. I can close my eyes and be THERE.

If you are a fan of YA books , especially if you read the TikTok sensation, We Were Liars, then you might enjoy this prequel that came out later by E. Lockhart.

This book is about the Sinclair sisters and when the "boys" entered the island. Although this is listed as a YA book, it has a lot of issues in it that might be better just for high school and above (especially with the topic of rape). The characters were interesting, and who doesn't like a book that takes place on an island where there is all kinds of fun, love interests, murder, and trauma to be had.

I gave this book three out of five stars because it just didn't hold up to We Were Liars, like I was hoping. I was especially disappointed with the ending. It just didn't make a lot of sense and seemed sudden to me. I wish it had tied more to the other book at the very end.

We Were Liars was, and still is, one of my all time favourite books.

So when I heard that there was going to be a prequel, I had a lot of mixed feelings. We Were Liars is eight years old and suddenly a prequel is being published. It worked fabulously as a standalone, so what more could there be to tell in a prequel? And still I was excited, because there was going to be more!! to one of my favourite books of all time. I could only hope that Family of Liars wouldn't have second book syndrome.

Unfortunately, it did.

Admittedly, I did not re-read We Were Liars before reading this book, but I still remember the impact of the style of the writing and the twist of it all. Family of Liars had a lot to live up to and large shoes to fill, as a follow up to the first book. And for me, this prequel didn't manage to fill these shoes.

Family of Liars follows Cassie, the eldest of the Sinclair sisters and the mother of Johnny from We Were Liars. We follow Cassie's retelling of her past, growing up and spending summers on their private island, and the one summer that changed everything.

I remember WWL being more stylistic and of course having a big reveal that had me shocked. WWL had more vibes and Family of Liars has more depth in its reflection on their family history and the family secrets. We get to learn more about the family and it definitely provides more background that will most likely change the way that I view some of the characters in WWL when I eventually re-read it.

And because it's been quite a number of years since the first book and the impact that it made, as a reader I was expecting big things from a follow up novel; expecting a gut punch of a twist like there was in the first book.

Despite my expectations not being met, this was a good read. It definitely makes me understand the Sinclair family more and I know more about each of the members and some of the family members that we dont' get to meet in WWL. I just expected too much going in and this made me feel like this book was kind of mid in comparison to WWL. As long as you don't go in expecting another banger of a book that punches you in the gut, and more of a background prequel to WWL, I think you should be fine.

A wonderful follow up to We were liars, Family of Liars delves deeper into the family dynamics of a very wealthy, mysterious, secretive family. Great read!

Definitely was great. I loved getting another novel in this universe. Definitely read the other one first before reading this prequel. I enjoyed getting more from this story and getting more background. It makes me want to read the other one all over again.

This newest book from Lockhart makes it easy to see the appeal and the attraction of literary prequels. Cast with the generation preceding Cadence and the characters of We Were Liars, this young adult thriller sets the stage for what future tragedy awaits the Sinclair family on their idyllic island. Carrie (Cadence’s aunt) is the oldest of four close-knit sisters, but seems to be the only family member willing to acknowledge the death of their youngest sibling. As Carrie grapples with her own feelings of abandonment and grief, she also aims to figure out the mystery of her sister’s death and what it means for their extended family and community.

I absolutely loved ‘We were liars’ the ending stunned me & this one was a nice quick read as well! I tried reading other books by the same author but nothing struck me as well as we were liars! 🫶🏻

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for making my day and giving me early access to the prequel of my - unpopular opinion alert - favorite book, We Were Liars. I blew through this book in less than a day. It was everything I was hoping for and more. I could read endless books about the Sinclair family and still be left unsatisfied. Please give Yardley her own book!

While I enjoyed We Were Liars more, it is always fun to get the back story. Caroline wasn’t a main character in my mind in the first book, so it was interesting to hear about her growing up with her sisters and parents. It was definitely worth reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the DRC.

Amazing setting? Check. Immaculate vibes? check. Family drama? check. THAT TWIST? CHECK. This prequel to We Were Liars will not disappoint fans of the original.

As much as I wanted to love this, I struggled to get into it until well over half way.
Middle schoolers will enjoy.

Told from Carrie's point of view, it is a prequel to We Were Liars, although you don't need to read We Were Liars for this one. However, there is a giant spoiler for We Were Liars in the beginning of this, so it doesn't really work as a prequel if the logic is to read this one first. But besides that...

I'm not sure why we needed this book. Carrie's story is interesting enough, but there are no shocking twists (the minor reveal at the end was predictable, for sure). Carrie tells the story of one particular summer where she and her sisters are on the brink of adulthood and are experimenting with pills, alcohol and boys. They make questionable decisions and then have to figure out how to deal with those decisions.

Overall, the book wasn't bad. It was paced well and I did like the comparisons made to other fairy tales, but I just felt it wasn't necessary.

I couldn’t wait to dive into this prequel of E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars. The mind blowing twist in that book was crazy.

The prequel opening line - “My son Johnny is dead.” sets the immediate tone. The narrator Caroline Lennox Taft Sinclair tells the story of her 17th summer on Beechwood Island, a family owned island off the coast of Massachusetts. She is telling the story of her family to her dead son who appears as a ghost at her kitchen island frequently. She drinks whiskey with him although he’s only 15, he is dead so what’s the harm.

She tells him that she’s been a liar all her life. It’s not uncommon in the Sinclair family.

She tells the story of her 3 sisters: Penny, Bee, and 10-year-old Rosemary who tragically drowns in the ocean, but appears in the book as a ghost only to Carrie.

Carrie is a fractured, haunted, drug-addicted girl. The sisters all teenagers expect a summer of boredom until a group of young men show up with her cousin Yardley and stay in one of the guest houses named Goose.

The girls become entangled in romance, adventure, and of course lying. Secrets of Caroline’s birth, the dramatics of losing a sister, and hushed secrets of the past create cracks in this dysfunctional rich family.

An incident of no return forces the sisters to band together to cover up the biggest secret of all.

Although I enjoyed the writing style this prequel does not deliver the jaw dropping twist as did its predecessor. I wanted more. This book just felt a little flat for me.

I enjoyed this prequel to We Were Liars. I probably should have done a re-read before starting this book, but when your TBR list is so long, re-reads are not a priority. Even though I didn't remember much of the first book, I still thought this was a good read.

Highly anticipated prequel to the viral book “We Were Liars”. I found it a bit predictable and often times pandered to the success of its sequel.

This book was hard to get through. I felt there was nothing exciting or new in it. It was a boring prequal that didn't add much to the first book.

This is the book that I didn't know I needed. I absolutely loved returning to the world of We Were Liars and seeing the background of all the characters and why they are the way they are.

If you liked We Were Liars, you will also like this book. It is exactly what you’d expect based on the original!

While this isn't a book I would adopt for curriculum, it is a book I will stock in my classroom library, right alongside we were liars. Family of Liars offers a complex look into what I like to call "the mortifying ordeal of being known", where our main character Carrie is forced to face her family's dysfunction as well as her own. Family of Liars offers the same familiar fell of We Were liars in a newer context, and of course features a knee kicking twist. While this book didn't seem as straightforward as the book it preludes, it is still a captivating tale.