Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for “We Were Liars” (2014) and “Family of Liars” (2022).
E. Lockhart’s “We Were Liars” holds a special place in my heart. I’m in awe of the way Lockhart pushes the bounds of typical fiction writing. She mixes in unique line breaks so that her book sometimes reads like a poem. She also creates incredible metaphors, like the witch in the first novel, that are so vivid, they have stuck with me to this day. I haven’t reread the book in over two years and I still think about it all the time.
Needless to say, when I found out this book is one of a series, I immediately picked up the second novel. “Family of Liars” is the prequel to “We Were Liars” and tells the story of the previous generation of the family from the first novel. There are similarities in these novels, including the murder of a boy the protagonist loves, an addiction to pills and parents who are unable to talk about their grief.
Protagonist Carrie Sinclair grapples with the complicated life of her family. The Sinclair family will do anything to protect themselves and appear perfectly happy, even if that means denying murder: “They’re doing just as I asked them to. As we Sinclairs always do. Pretending. Lying. Trying to have a good time.”
Carrie doesn’t like many parts of her family, but she also recognizes her own enjoyment of their wealth, as she loved growing up on their private island: “I am white cotton and sandy feet, old money and lilacs, yes—and yet my insides are made of seawater, warped wood, and rusty nails.” Metaphors are a specialty of Lockhart’s, and they’re peppered throughout the novel in a unique way, which was something I loved so much about her writing from the first novel. I love her use of phrases like “beautiful moonlight boy.”
This book takes place in the same world as the first, taking readers back to the Sinclair’s beautiful private island. The setting reminds the reader of a classic summer romance vibe that’s found in stories like “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” If you like the summer romance genre, you should definitely read these books. Lines like “I hear the echo of the waves, feel the warm drumbeat of the sun and the cucumber cool of the seawater against my skin” evoke warm, summery feelings — although, be forewarned that it’s not all happy and dreamy like some classic summer romances are…
Both books hint at something ominous to come, but the pieces don’t click until much later in the story. The secret in this book was dark, which I was expecting after reading “We Were Liars,” but I was still surprised by some of the gory details incorporated in the murder scene.
“We Were Liars” is easily a five-star rating from me, but its prequel is closer to 3.5 or 4 stars. It was still a great read, but it didn’t quite meet the perfection of the first one. I think that’s partly because I was so attached to the first novel, in which the mothers are so villainized, that it was hard to enjoy reading from the quasi-villain’s perspective. These books are also so amazing during your first read, because the twists are so jarring, but perhaps I was expecting a surprise in the second one, so it wasn’t as effective. My love of the first novel bumps the prequel’s rating to a 4/5.
I’ll leave you with a final quote, as always:
“Those deaths can never be undone. The loss is a canyon, yawning wide, rippled with stones and striated with layers of clay and silt. I have been thrown into the canyon and will never be able to climb out. I must live out my days in this loss.”
