I received a free advance copy from NetGalley. It’s one more compelling example of how we often fail children placed in care. Since I live on the west coast, I have followed all the media stories of this tragedy, including what was learned about the attention from child welfare agencies. I would recommend it to those who don’t already know the story.

This book stirred many emotions in me. Difficult read but one that needs to be read. What these poor children went through was heartbreaking. Very well written and highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest opinion. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and Macmillan Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of this important book by Roxanna Asgarian and beautifully narrated by Suehyla El-Attar - 5 stars!

In 2018, the headlines screamed the story of two women who apparently intentionally drove their SUV off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean. It turns out that they were a married couple who adopted six black children from two different families in TX and extolled their perfect family all over social media. But in truth, the couple moved around a lot to avoid issues and the children were living horrible lives of abuse and neglect. The author, a journalist, was the first to look into the children's birth families and found a huge backstory of repeated failures by the systems put in place to protect these children and their families.

This book is meticulously researched. The author took the time to find the children's birth families and really get involved with trying to help them after this tragedy. While hindsight is always 20/20 and we could site just as many tragedies from children being returned to their birth families as not, this book highlights the fact that being poor and black doesn't help in the eyes of those in charge. There were people desperate to have these children back in their homes and they weren't deemed acceptable. This book should be mandatory reading by all those in charge of making child placement decisions for another side to the story. Highly recommended.

Thank you Roxanna Asgarian, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC e-book. This was such an incredibly heartbreaking story. Not only the circumstances and nature of these adopted childrens gruesome death at the hands of their guardians but the story Asgarian tells of the events that lead to theses children being taken away from their families and the shady handling of the foster care system. Just an all around mess that these innocent children found themselves in. Every new piece of information had you asking "how could they drop the ball AGAIN" and knowing what the outcome was... it was so hard to even read knowing there would be no happy ending. The information the author was able to piece together from the families and friends paints this picture where you have to question why these kids and was race a factor.Just all around hearbreaking.

We Were Once A Family is an eye-opening book that documents the lives of the six children killed at the hands of two women in Oregon in 2018. It is a fast read, with lots of background information about the foster care system in the US and its many faults, shortcomings, and sometimes deep corruption. It is a searing indictment of the system and how it penalizes the poor.

It focuses on families whose children are taken away instead of the adoptive families we hear most about. I expected to feel heartbroken from this book, but did not anticipate how angry I would feel. The children of too many families are taken away and the government fails to adequately help families. I listened to the audiobook, which was perfectly narrated by Suehyla El-Attar.

Thank you, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Macmillan Audio for providing this ebook and audiobook ARC.

While I read a lot of true-crime stories, This was one of the most ‘textbook’ written ones and that just doesn’t appeal to me. I felt like the author spent the majority of the book telling us all the things she researched, as opposed to the story being about the children. While the author did have to do this background research, it does not necessarily have to make it to the book. This is unfortunate as this case is absolutely fascinating.

This book broke my heart. The investigation into how this happened is just another example of how the foster system is failing those it is supposed to be protecting. When the story of the Harts and their children plunging to their deaths broke it centered on the foster parents. Whereas this book focuses on the children and the many ways that the system failed them. The author told the personal stories of the families while painting a picture of the foster care and adoption system and its many flaws. The author brought this all together and created a very informative read that broke my heart.

I highly recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley, Roxanna Asgarian and the publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC of this book which I voluntarily read and reviewed. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Publication date: 3/14/2023

This book was extremely shocking and difficult to get through, but I think it is important for everyone who wants to learn more about the foster system to read this book.

This book starts off with a couple driving their car off a cliff, killing themselves and their adopted children. There are scant details about what happened and the investigation process because this is not the story of a murder, but the story of the injustices of the foster care and adoption system. We learn about the children's family history and how they were put into the foster care system, how their families fought to take them out but ultimately could not due to racism and the complete mess the whole system was, and is, in. We learn how the children were adopted out of state by a family who seemed to collect children of a certain social standing, and the subsequent abuse these children suffered--abuse the state knew of but did nothing about. Then we learn how the situation unraveled and the children lost their lives.

It is so difficult to read about how a system that is supposed to take care of these children failed these children. It allowed them to be adopted by a couple with previous domestic arrests who then abused the children, yet nobody did anything to help them. It is impeccably researched, focuses on the children, and is easy to read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an eARC of this book.

Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family: A Story of Death, Love, and Child Removal in America (Macmillian 2023) is a searing indictment of the foster care system in the United States. Asgarian’s text begins with the shocking murder suicide of Jennifer Hart, Sarah Hart, and their six adopted children. In 2018, Jennifer Hart drove the family car over a cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway, killing everyone in the car. Two of the children’s bodies have never been found. However, if you are looking for salacious details on this high-profile case, you won’t find them here. We Were Once a Family tells the story of the Hart’s six adopted children, the birth families they came from, and the abysmal systemic failures that led to six children being abused and killed by their foster parents.
Asgarian is critical of the media coverage of the case because of the way it has focused on the Hart’s and what drove them to kill their adopted children. This is a mistake, she claims, because you cannot truly understand this story without understanding how the children ended up placed with the Harts. As a result, Asgarian takes a deep dive into the children’s histories, going so far as to track history of the birth parents’ parents and thereby elucidating how the abuse of this family by the foster care system goes back generations.
Asgarian also goes to great lengths to explain the biases and racism that are baked into the system—a disproportionate number of black children are placed in the system, she explains, and the reasons for this largely have to do with the way the system treats black families. The Harts were white, and their adopted children were black. Even though many of the children had extend family members fighting in the courts for their right to adopt the children, the children were placed with the Harts, a couple who had had previous CPS investigations opened against them and had been convicted of domestic abuse. The reason for this is bias and racism, Asgarian explains. People within the system who allowed these adoptions to go through made assumptions about the suitability of the Harts based upon race: they assumed that black children would be better taken care of in the hands of white parents.
Asgarian vigorously goes after the system and its many problems, but she just as vigorously tells the story of the murdered children and their birth families. It is evident that she got to know these families; she even went so far as to secure the ashes of the children for the birth families from the families of Jennifer and Sarah, acting as a mediator. Her advocacy for the birth families really had no limits, and as a result we as readers get a narrative of these families that is honest, detailed, and compassionate. Displaying the ways that the foster care system effects birth families is not a perspective that is often focused on, but it is only through this perspective that you can see the extent of the damage the system has done and continues to do. In this way, this book is essential reading not only to learn about this case, but to really understand the problems with the foster care system and its desperate need for reform. We Were Once a Family ultimately suggests that the “why” doesn’t matter in this case as much as the “how,” and flawlessly executes that “how” with careful detail and grace.

Oof. I knew this book would be upsetting going in, but I honestly didn't plan for the feelings of fury and frustration it also evoked.

You most likely remember the news story. Jennifer and Sarah Hart, two white moms, adopted 3 biracial and 3 Black children and, after years of reports of abuse, drugged themselves and their kids and drove their minivan off a cliff in CA, killing everyone. This comprehensive and compelling book explores this tragedy through the lens of the children's birth families and the many failings of the foster-care and adoption systems. Asgarian shows off her immense journalism talents with this riveting nonfiction read.

In this book, readers are introduced to the birth mothers of each trio of kids. We hear about the addiction and mental health issues that brought them to a TX court system that favored terminating parental rights (and denying fit relatives custody), while ignoring and excusing years of allegations of abuse by the Hart parents. We hear about the older sibling who wasn't adopted and his spiral into addiction & incarceration. We hear about a white TX judge who hired his cronies, while saying shockingly racist things to the parents of color who appeared before him in court. We hear about how the birth parents weren't told that their kids were dead. We go with Roxanna as she works with Jennifer's devastated-yet-empathetic father to give parts of the ashes of 5 of the kids (Devonte's remains were never found) to their birth parents.

From every angle, this story is heartbreaking. How systemic racism and socio-economic inequality affected the birth families. How even reporting on the Hart murder-suicide crafted a narrative that rationalized their actions as those of two "overwhelmed" mothers. But, most importantly, how 6 young lives were the casualties of systems and laws that put punishment over help and bureaucracy over humanity. Markis, Hannah, Devonte, Jeremiah, Abigail, and Ciera are the true victims in all of this.

If you like reading books that shine the light on the humans behind headlines, this is a must-read.

TW: child abuse

My love of true crime ended with Sarah and Jennifer Hart. I remember sitting in a Whole Foods when the story broke that they had driven their car off a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean, killing themselves and their 6 adopted children. All 6 children were Black. All of them had been abused. As more and more details began to pour out about the mothers, the children were relegated to footnotes. Articles verged on ironic - how had these kids, coming from poverty, landed with a seemingly liberal, conscientious couple, only to end up worse off? I started to get an icky-feeling that I couldn’t explain, but that I also couldn’t explain away. Soon after I drifted away from true crime.

Asgarian reeled me back in with the understanding that these children’s lives did not start when they were adopted. They had lives before that, with their birth families, and those stories deserved to be told just as much as the Hart’s. Their abuse did not start with their adoptions either; they were put through hell by the foster care system and by a racially biased court system in Texas, where their birth families were not given a fair shake at reuniting with them. While not perfect by any means, there was a system of love and familiarity set up to help these children that was pushed aside in favor of a cleaner story. The system interpreted poverty as neglect, and addition and mental health crises as cruelty, and this book shines a light on all the many ways things need to change before this happens again.


Read If You:
Are starting to reevaluate your relationship with true crime content
Don’t know what the “Christian Alamo” was
Are familiar with “white saviorism"

On top of a cliff in California a woman sat with her wife and four kids by the morning they would all be at the bottom and everyone deceased. In the aftermath the love ones and others would want someone to blame and that someone would be child protection and the government workers tasked with protecting these innocent children. Although some would say they didn’t care because the foster kids were minorities or because the parents were homosexual but in the end who can really predict such a tragedy. Roxana Asgarian does her best and takes a deep dive into the lives of the parents the foster children the love ones and the only brother left to the siblings. She also keeps up with the fathers plight of taking care of the only son he has left in the mental anguish this will cause an already mentally unstable man. With great respect to the family she tells a story up all involved and although she doesn’t answer all the questions she at least gets the story told. This is a great well researched story about would’ve could’ve and should’ve been the aftermath of tragedy and it’s a book I highly recommend. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

When the story of the Hart family’s murder-suicide broke, I knew this book would come, but I have been holding my breath for a long time about what kind of book it would be. As a former foster parent who became interested in learning everything possible about the winding ins and outs of the system historically thru today, I’ve read my fair share of overviews. Many fall into the trap of considering what is best for children based on length of time in care alone, and the problem of impermanence. This book is not that — and thank goodness. This book takes the tragedy of the Hart family and does not scour Jen & Sarah’s psyche past the obvious nor does it lionize them as overwhelmed women and mothers doing the best they could til they reached a breaking point as so many stories do. This book unwinds the much more complex story of how the Hart children came to be adopted by the mothers in the first place, and how the system fails birth families and, by default, those children. This is a great modern case study in injustice, racism rampant in the child welfare political game, and the impact of poverty and generational trauma. It is a modern version of the classic LOST CHILDREN OF WILDER by Nina Bernstein, and a readable entry into understanding what’s wrong with foster care. This book handles tragedy without lurid details or assuming birth families must have been the worse option as so many hit pieces do. I am grateful it exists so I can recommend it to any wishing to look beyond the savior narrative of adoption and foster parenting. Well-researched and searing. Highly recommend.

Talk about true crime! This one was a mix between true crime and social justice. Asgarian takes true crime to the next level, not only exposing the crime but also providing suggestions to what needs to change in the foster care/adoption/CPS world.

This story is a tragedy for four families: two sets of families who lost their children to "the system" and two families who lost their daughters to mental illness, substance use, murder and suicide. Jennifer and Sarah Hart decide to adopt children that were made adoptable from the Child Protective Services/foster care system. They adopt three children from Texas and have suspicions of abuse towards them. Then, they decide to adopt three despite these accusations of child abuse.

Asgarian uncovers the multiple layers of corruption, abuse, conflict and pure tragedy in this story and the story of millions of other children and poverty-stricken families. This is a must-read! It comes out on March 14, 2023, and if you haven't preordered it yet, you must! This was one of the best and most informative non-fiction, true crime pieces I've ever read. It definitely opened my eyes and I hope it does for you too. Five stars for me!

#NetGalley #WeWereOnceaFamily

Extremely well sourced and researched, sensitively written, and deeply heartbreaking, We Were Once a Family tells the story of the adopted children in the infamous Hart family murders and their families of origin. It's also a blistering indictment of the child welfare "system" in America, delving into the history and foundations of the system as well as detailed information about the specific failures, corruption and racism in the Texas child welfare system. This book should be required reading for everyone entering into graduate studies for social work, anyone considering entering into the "foster to adopt" scheme that actively separates children of color from kinship placements, and anyone working in child welfare on any level. Kudos and gratitude to Roxanna Asgarian for the incredibly hard work of producing this vital text.

When I started reading this book, I expected to read about a couple who adopted six children and then killed them. But that's the story that we all knew and the author realized that the real story was how the children ended up being adopted by these two women and how the foster care system absolutely and carelessly disregards the biological parents, preferring to penalize them rather than help them. After reading this horrifying tale, it is clear to any reader that there has to be a better way of handling the neglect that occurs in families that are lacking resources to take care of their children. How much easier, how much more logical, how much more compassionate and how much more economical would it be to give impoverished families the resources they need to get back on their feet? Instead children are removed and carelessly placed with whomever would take them. It is clear that there is systemic abuse in the foster care program that is no doubt more widespread than just Texas. I hope this book serves as an eye opener and that people in position to do something are motivated forward.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. The author did a phenomenal job of presenting the information she uncovered. I hope it is read widely.

This was a very eye opening and jarring book. It was very well written and not in the typical "true crime" way which was refreshing. The foster system is so broken and has been for a very long time. This book will open people's eyes to the very hard truths. I often had to put this down to take a break from the heart wrenching story.

A heartbreaking read, an eye opening story that made you think twice on the current adopted foster care system. So many children are being abused and neglected in the family especially those who were adopted and oprhaned. This book highlighted how the system used currently may not protect these children but instead the lack of care may caused more harms to them. I have a hard time reading this bcus of how horrible the situation are but it was a great read.

This was a heartbreaking read, but such an important and essential book. I appreciated the author looking at the Hart family as indicative of the bigger problems with the foster care system. It made me enraged for and sympathetic to the children in the system. Very well-written.

This book is a important read -- I started reading it thinking the story would be centered on the foster parents who drove over a cliff with their kids in the van since that is what the news reports told us. But as this book unfolded it became clear it would be centered on the biological and extended families and the very broken child welfare system. This is where the focus belongs and I never knew the tragic story behind these kids being taken into the foster system when there were family members who loved them and would care for them. This book is an indictment of the entire system and in particular provides evidence on how Texas's system in particular is corrupt, elitist and racist. It is heartbreaking to learn that there could have been many interventions along the way before it resulted in the murder/suicides. What brings particular poignancy to this book is that the author also experienced child abuse and neglect so understands the impact and the resulting PTSD. Each child deserves a safe place to live and yet CPS (Child Protective Services) is failing children and families. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.