Family of Liars: A Serviceable Return to the World of We Were Liars

E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars took the book community by storm back in 2014, and the author has returned with a prequel nearly a decade later. Family of Liars features many of the same elements that made the original story such a success, tackling themes of growing up and grief while diving deeper into the world of the Sinclair family. Although this follow-up isn’t quite as impressive as We Were Liars, it’s a completely serviceable story that will no doubt hook readers from start to finish.
Set 27 years before the events of We Were Liars, Family of Liars follows the previous generation of the Sinclair family. Readers have already met Cassie, Penny, and Bess as adults warring over the family fortune. In Family of Liars, they appear as teenagers—still stoic and obsessed with their image, but significantly more vulnerable than the last time we saw them.
Family of Liars offers readers Cassie’s perspective. And as it turns out, there’s more to Johnny’s mother than you’d think after reading We Were Liars. Cassie takes readers through her early years on Beechwood Island as she recounts “the worst thing” she’s ever done to Johnny’s ghost. That’s right, the spectral appearances on Beechwood Island keep coming in this prequel, proving Cady’s adventures from Book 1 weren’t all in her head. The Sinclair family’s private oasis is tainted by a tragedy that goes back further than Cady’s story. So, really, it’s no surprise ghosts make a habit of haunting the place.
In fact, one of the biggest revelations from Family of Liars is casually thrown in at the beginning of the book. There used to be a fourth Sinclair sister, younger than Cassie, Penny, and Bess. However, Rosemary drowned the summer Cassie turned 16. In typical Sinclair fashion, the family avoids dwelling on her absence. Only Cassie seems unable to keep her emotions in check, and that’s probably why her youngest sister returns to her after death.
Oddly enough, Rosemary’s ghostly presence isn’t the central focus of Family of Liars—though it does spark conversations about loss. But the prequel’s real story begins when a group of boys arrives on Beechwood Island, bringing romance and drama into the Sinclair sisters’ lives.
One of the boys—Lawrence Pfefferman, dubbed Pfeff for short—catches Cassie’s eye from the moment he arrives. Their summer romance proves a convenient distraction from her grief. Of course, the present-day Cassie is treating this story as a confession, so her fling with Pfeff seems destined to end in tragedy.