Since I just finished reading Family of Liars and haven’t yet even given a review of We Were Liars I’m gonna shove both reviews into this post.

⭐ SPOILER ALERT – I don’t think I’ll totally ruin the books for you if you haven’t read them, but I might give a little bit away. Be warned.

Also, I borrowed “We Were Liars” and, thus, don’t have a cutesy picture of it for this blog post, but whatever. I think we’ll survive, yeah? Wanna see a picture of the other book since the world prefers blog posts with pictures in ’em? Ok, here ya go! 👇

Alright on with the review…

We Were Liars is one of those books I absolutely could not put down

I remember when I was first handed the book. “You should read this,” my step daughter said to me. It’d been a while since I’d really been into reading and she usually reads high fantasy so I wasn’t sure. (Side note – I got out of reading when I nearly lost my vision for a few years and when financial constraints made it difficult to get my hands on books I liked).

I turned the book over in my hands, flipping the pages. It was stuffed with sticky flags her best friend had used to note her favourite parts and words were scrawled in the margins. I read the back blurb (quite a good hook, if you ask me).

I shrugged and thought, “Well, I’ll give it a chance.”

I’m glad I did.

At the time, I wasn’t really on TikTok very often and certainly wasn’t paying attention to #booktok so I had no idea that it was a viral sensation. But I can see why it was.

I started reading and vowed to myself to only read it before bed. Well, let’s just say I didn’t sleep much for a few nights. I couldn’t put it down. It didn’t lull me to sleep. It kept me up. “I need to know more!”

We Were Liars missed the mark just a little bit, for me

Listen, just because I loved a book doesn’t mean it didn’t have its flaws from my perspective, and there are a few places where We Were Liars left me wanting for more.

*Let me be clear – this is mostly about personal preference. I think subjective opinions about books are important even if objectively the books is very good. Sometimes there are great books with incredible reviews that just don’t jive for me. And that’s ok.

We Were Liars was very Cady-focused. Now this makes sense 😆 of course BUT I felt the entire time that something was missing. And it wasn’t until afterward that I realized… I didn’t grow to care much about the other characters. If you’ve read my previous reviews of fiction titles, you know that character development is hugely important to me, as a reader.

It honestly wasn’t until after watching the TV show that I realized character development was my major missing piece. Why? Because they did such a great job of making me care about the other characters in the show. They were larger, more full of life and their own stories. Cady wasn’t the only focus.

I can see why it would be hard to keep the secrets of the plot twists while also focusing on other characters so I see why E. Lockhart chose the route she chose. But I also see how it could be different. And I wonder if maybe she saw it, too, since he was heavily involved in the making of the TV show.

🤔 Did you know?
The TV series We Were Liars was filmed in Nova Scotia, Canada?

Family of Liars succeeds in the few places where We Were Liars let me down

Written from Carrie’s perspective instead of Cady’s Family of Liars (book 2 in the series) gives incredible character development. Every character is expanded upon in enough depth for me to understand a bit of their story and perspective. And Lockhart does this without taking away from Carrie’s point of view and overall perspective.

If you’ve read both books and seen the show you have noticed that some of book 2 makes its way into season 1 of the show. This wasn’t the case with book 1 in the series.

Family of Liars was a bit more predictable than We Were Liars

The twists weren’t as dramatic in Family of Liars because, well, I was expecting them 🤷🏻‍♀️ but I don’t think that’s something Lockhart could get away from. If she didn’t do twists at all, I’d have been let down (and I think you would be, too). That being said, I think she succeeded in making them, well, twisty. 😆

Though I knew there were twists coming I didn’t manage to guess what every one of them was. And, honestly, I’m annoying like that. I know what’s going to happen in more tv shows, books, and movies before it happens. I sing the next part of a brand new song before I hear it.

My mind is built for pattern recognition, so it’s always nice when I manage to be surprised. Lockhart definitely surprised me with We Were Liars which is, I think, a big part of why I liked it so much. Family of Liars was less surprising but still managed to sneak a few things past me.

Did you read these? What were your thoughts?