4.5 stars. This book was fantastic. It did a great job of weaving the families personal stories with facts about the bigger picture of foster care and adoption. I loved that this flawlessly pointed out injustices. The history, the policies, the statistics, the story - the author brought it all together perfectly to make it readable and informative,

It made me want to cry right in the beginning after finding out Devontae's family had not one, but two safe, loving kinship options and if they been allowed to stay with them they would be alive today. I am a foster parent and we NEED to hear this story - I will recommending this to everyone I know. I have seen far too many foster parents fight kids going to kinship and in this case it would have saved their lives.

This is very well-researched and matter-of-fact. It's not a sensational retelling of a horrific event in the true crime genre, which is refreshing after so many books have reopened horrible wounds in that manner. Instead, the focus is on the kids who suffered and the living people left behind who suffered at the hands of the child welfare system. It points out the many off-ramps that would allow the kids to be still alive today, the myriad ways they could've stayed with family in the first place, and the utter failure of CPS now and through history.

This is not a feel-good book, but it's a call to action around changing policies and looking deeper at adoption and fostering to see its flaws. It's written journalistically with solid references and interviews. You will not walk away feeling happy or enthralled by a crime, but hopefully, you will walk away with a better understanding of abolition.

The horrific Hart family murder is one that has lingered with me for years and this is hands down the best writing I have read on it! While most pieces and podcasts have focused on the murderous parents, she focuses on the children, their birth families, and the systems that failed them. It added a whole new layer to this tragedy and really made me question some assumptions I held. I would be surprised if this book doesn’t end up in my top reads of the year!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is an absolutely phenomenal book, one that should be required reading for all people. An absolutely infuriating, heartbreaking look at the broken child protection system, this book showcases how Black children and families are often criminalized and destroyed, rather than given assistance. I loved how the author looked at the system as a whole, and centered the biological families of the children, rather than the women who adopted them. The biological families deserve to have their stories told with nuance and compassion, and the author definitely did just that. Highly recommend this book.

This is the tragic story of how our foster care system has failed in America. Two lesbian women adopted six Black children. Both of these women had emotional problems and never should have been allowed to get these children. When they were about to be reported for abuse again they put these precious children in the car with them and drove over a cliff.
Our foster and welfare system is definitely broken. Biological family members are often ignored instead of helped with their problems that caused their children to be taken away. Both biological families had family members willing to take these children but were instead shipped to Minnesota from Texas. Many of these fosters develop emotional problems.
We can certainly do better for these children. The author does say some improvements are being made but more needs to be done.
Highly recommend this book especially to social workers.

harrowing, well-researched book on the many horrific problems in the child welfare system - compassionately written, giving voice to victims and family members who have thus far been ignored. gives intelligent context without derailing too far from the case in question. one thing that will stay with me for a long time are the quotes from case workers and judges who failed these children, defending their actions and justifying why, in their eyes, they did not fail at all. ghastly.

thank you to FSG/NG for the ARC. very well written and terrifying book.

What a powerful and heartbreaking true story of children in the foster care system. Adoption is a subject close to my heart and I knew I had to read this new book by Asgarian. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

It’s not easy to read about families being separated and abuse of children. This book deals with a lot of that. It is fascinating though how much research and details the author packs into the book. It’s concise and very well written.

While heartbreaking to read at times I would suggest that social workers and families involved with fostering read this asap!

On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was so much more to the story. Jennifer and Sarah Hart were a white married couple who had adopted six Black children from two different families in Texas in 2006 and 2008. Behind the families loving facade, however was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country.

Roxanna Asgarian’s investigative journalism tells the story of these six children with a behind the scenes look at their biological families. There is so much to unpack from this book: the warning signs of abuse that were ignored, the dysfunctional child protective services in Texas at the time, biases that impact the birth families, the surprising laws and policies that were in place at the time. I remember this story being in the news, but I never dreamed this story went so much deeper. I thought Asgarian did a splendid job of telling the biological family’s side of the story, but it was also heartbreaking to hear. I was also shocked at how the judicial system was so biased against children who came from poverty stricken families or families with drug issues, yet they had another family member who was willing to take the children in, but the court system allowed them to go into foster care. I was also appalled that there were adoption websites that allowed children to be adopted on an almost expedited schedule, which allowed these children to be whisked away to a different state and never see their birth families again. My heart is still truly broken for Dontay, who was the eldest of the Davis siblings who was separated from them to never see them again.

This was an interesting perspective on the case. It was nice to get more background on the children and the children’s families. I do wish it went into more detail on the crime and what happened to the kids when they were in the Hart’s care and what happened leading up to the murder-suicide.

I read this book in one setting. It’s absolutely gut wrenching. I had to put it down a few times to gather myself. It’s a real eye opener. The writing was excellent. I highly recommend this book !

A very well written work of investigative journalism.A look into the failure of the foster care system.The placement of these children with these two women even though there were red fags and the sadness and the horror of their deaths.#netgalley #fsg

We were once a family by Roxanna Asgarian reports the shocking crime of murder-suicide that took the lives of 6 children and 2 adults. Many of us have heard about the discovery of an SUV at the bottom of a cliff, but no one has really heard the tiny details that led up to this moment. Additionally, the lives of the biological families are explored in this book. Each of the 6 children had a history, had a family that was taken away from them tragically by Jennifer and Sarah Hart. As described in the book, there were many warning signs of abuse and neglect, even worse than what the children suffered in their biological families, but yet, nothing was done. The author, Roxanna Asgarian is a journalist who wanted to know more about the families of the 6 dead children. What she discovered was heartbreaking, the biological families never wanted to lose their children and were trying to keep them. However, they were ignored and overlooked and the children were adopted, not by loving parents, but by 2 adults that never should have had children based upon the way that they treated them. This was an interesting read and provide additional details and points of view that were never explored on documentaries, or news. Thank you the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review. A solid true crime novel.

This is a very in-depth look at the story behind the headlines of the tragic deaths that were so in the news at the time. If you ever wanted to know more than the basic reporting when it happened, this is a really good book. It tells how the kids ended up with the Hart women, despite red flags. Also, it tells about some surprising laws and policies in place at the time that helped the situation happen.

In 2018 two adoptive parents drove themselves and their six children over a cliff into the pacific. Asgarian explores the backstory of this including the dysfunctional “child protective” systems that separate families, the biases that impact the poor and minorities and the impact on birth families. This is important information to publish and the book is clearly well-researched and includes extensive data but is a dry read.

Last year I read Invisible Child written on a very similar topic and it was riveting. In stark contrast, Asgarian's take on the topic is boring. The book is full of dates and quotes and descriptions of the murdered children, but it never grabbed my interest or heartstrings. The author has written a fact-filled research paper, but not a very interesting work of non-fiction. My only take-away was that the U.S. government's adoption system is antiquated and grinds slowly.

This was a difficult read at times, because it discusses the failure of our child protection policies tp actually keep children from harm. It is clear that the author has done her homework on the foster care situation in Texas, and she describes the real horror that seems to face many of these children and their parent (at times). The book builds its discussion of the failure of CPS around the story of Jennifer and Sarah Hart, the two women who adopted six black children from Texas (two sets of three siblings each) and abused them by withholding affection and more importantly food from them. Eventually, Jen drove all of the family straight off a cliff in a crazy murder-suicide. This story is sad, but it gets even worse when you hear from the birth mothers of the six children. Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me to read a proof in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free copy of We Were Once a Family, by Roxanna Asgarian, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Jennifer and Sarah Hart, fooled so many people, including the people who are supposed to protect foster children. The white couple, adopted colored children, they wanted a big family. Allegations of abuse and neglect were not always followed up.. These poor children were never protected, by the people meant to help them and love them. A well written book on such a tragic story that could of been prevented.

This is a well-researched journalistic look at the well-publicized murder-suicide of married couple and their 6 adopted children. Very sad, horrifying telling, with no upside. Child Protective services, adoption agencies, foster care, law enforcement, all are horrible performers in this telling, and the children and birth families get the very short end of the stick. It felt a bit too broad a telling, engaging too many players and organizations.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. We Were Once a Family is the horrific true story of Jen and Sara Hart - a white lesbian married couple who adopted two sets of Black siblings. The story was in the news for a long time in 2018, when the couple drove their SUV off a cliff with their six adopted children in the vehicle. Roxanna Asgarian has done a superb job in recapping the tragedy as well as providing the background story of the children and their biological parents. The tragedy of the car wreck and deaths is wrapped around the imperfect foster care system and the gaps in decent safe care of children in the system. The book was one of the best true crime books I've read and one of the saddest.

This book is a look into the foster care and adoption system in America. It highlights a story of a murder/suicide of a family. I thought the book was an interesting piece of journalism. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.