A review by zoemain
Family of Liars by E. Lockhart

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.25

Objectively this book isn’t bad, but it pales in comparison to the sequel We Were Liars and I personally didn’t enjoy it.
To me a lot of this book felt like filler, ESPECIALLY the entire plot with Rosemary, the dead little sister. OMG, I swear I reread the same scene with Rosemary the ghost 100 times. It goes like this:
Carrie: “Rosemary, why and how are you haunting me?”
Rosemary: “I don’t know.”
Carrie: “Okay.”
Rosemary: “Want to make bracelets and snuggle?”
Carrie: “I’d rather be hanging out with my boyfriend rather than my dead little sister, but I feel guilty, so sure.”
Imagine this, but painfully dragged over two pages and on about ten different occasions. UUGGHHH!
And why is nobody mentioning that you never even learn why Carrie is seeing ghosts! There is no explanation. None! I suffered through so many Rosemary scenes and I don’t have a reason as to why. That really bothered me.
Moving on, the characters were all quite one-dimensional and uninteresting. Carrie is the addict. Penny is the princess. Bess is the little sister. Pfeff is the player. You’ll learn nothing else about the characters other than what I just told you.
I did like some of the mini plot twists but the main plot twist
(Carrie murdering Pfeff)
was so predictable.
Especially because this book follows the exact same formula as the Sequel.

I could go on and on but I’ll stop here. This book was a lazy version of We Were Liars. I won’t be recommending it to anyone.
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