Family of Liars

 Family of Liars 

Summary and Review By Krishna Jaswal 

This blog contains spoilers for We Were Liars. There will be no spoilers for Family of Liars though (which is what this blog is about)! 

Summary 

Family of Liars in a sense is the prequel to We Were Liars. It tells the story of Caroline Sinclair, the mother of Johnny who was a part of “The Liars” along with Cadence, Mirren, and Gat. The only thing, which is highkey the main plot twist of We Were Liars, that I’ll spoil is that the accident that Cadence goes back to the island to find out about was a fire. There was a fire and out of the Liars, she was the only one to survive. The summer she goes back, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat appear to her as ghosts to help her find out what truly happened. I dropped a hint or two in my last blog (which you should go read if you haven’t!) about the island being haunted and what really happened to the Liars. 

Even though Family of Liars starts off with Johnny being a ghost after the accident, it goes back in time to when Johnny’s mother was growing up. Johnny appears to his mother as a ghost to talk to her when she comes downstairs to the kitchen at night to drink some whisky. One night he asks his mom, “What's the worst thing you did? The absolute worst thing you ever did, back then?” What he doesn’t realize is that Caroline has one heck of a story in store for him. 

Caroline has always felt out of place. Her weak jaw makes her face look different from her other 3 sisters. Her parents try to get her to get surgery but she says no and turns it down whenever her parents mention it. Every summer is the same; beaches and food. However, one summer Caroline’s sister, Rosemary, drowns. It’s clear that it has an effect on everyone but the Sinclairs are taught to not mourn in front of people. As the summers pass, Caroline ends up getting jaw surgery after her parents keep insisting. Her jaw is different after the surgery but with the amount of pain medications she's on, she’s more worried about becoming an addict than her jaw. Caroline turns 17 and returns to the island for the summer where she meets new guests, an unexpected guest, and finds out information about herself that makes her doubt if she really is a Sinclair. 

This is the summer when Caroline kisses a boy and sees a ghost for the first time, the ghost of her dead sister Rosemary. Rosemary’s death had a huge impact on Caroline and so when she sees her ghost she’s determined to bring her sister's soul to peace by treating her like she’s still alive (similar to what she does to Johnny after he passes). Her mother however gives her a necklace and tells Caroline something about her that makes Caroline’s world flip upside down. Not only that, a cousin's boyfriend's friends are the new guests on the island and Caroline ends up getting into a “summer fling” with one of them. A summer full of unexpected guests, unwanted feelings, and internal conflicts, what could go wrong? 

Review and Rating

I have to say (and have said in my last blog post) that We Were Liars was such an outstanding book to me and Family of Liars just didn’t live up to it. Family of Liars was great in its own way but it was sort of predictable. I loved how it talked about how people mourn differently. I also liked how it shined a light on Caroline’s worry about not fitting in and showing how she learns that it's okay to not fit in over the course of the book. However, I felt like halfway through the book I knew what was going to end up happening. It just didn’t build the same suspense We Were Liars did. I wouldn’t necessarily say it's a bad book but it wasn’t mind-blowing. I would still recommend the book especially if you like E. Lockhart’s books or if you are just looking for something to read. Overall, I rate it an 8/10!