Alison Cherry Shares 5 Fun Facts About She’s the Liar

Boarding school, new identities, and sibling rivalry – that’s what She’s the Liar is all about!

Whether you’re headed to a boarding school or just entering junior high for the first time, middle school is often a great time to get a fresh start. The promise of meeting new people and being one grade older and wiser means we can shed our elementary school personas and figure out who we are destined to be as middle schoolers.

That’s especially true for sisters Abby and Sydney inShe’s the Liar. As Abby heads into her first year at Brookside Academy, she re-invents herself as Abbi, a confident, bubbly persona which she hopes will help her break out of her shy, quiet shell. Abby soon finds out about a powerful student organization called the Committee that makes the rules and has full control of all student activities. She is also shocked to discover that the mean girl president in charge of the Committee is her older sister, Sydney!

This discovery ignites a heated sibling rivalry between the two sisters as they go behind each other’s backs to fight for power, influence, and the protection of their new identities. Can these two sisters survive boarding school together while also keeping their relationship intact?

Want to go behind the scenes of She’s the Liar? Author Alison Cherry had shared 5 Fun Facts about her real-life experiences that inspired the story!

5 Fun Facts About She’s the Liar:

FACT #1:

Like Sydney, I have a younger sister. Fortunately, our relationship is unlike Sydney’s relationship with Abby in pretty much every way. My sister, Erica, is five years younger than I am, and we didn’t do any of the same activities when we were kids, so we never felt competitive with each other like Abby and Sydney do. We’re also lucky that we have always been able to be honest with each other and never feel the need to hide our true selves.

I hope that as Abby and Sydney grow up, they can find the kind of honest friendship with each other that I have with Erica, who is one of my very favorite people. Here’s a picture of the two of us the day she got married.

FACT #2:

Sydney and I share a love of outer space. In the book, Sydney tries to help her school’s astronomy club go on a trip to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of the SpaceX Dragon. The Dragon carries food and supplies to the International Space Station, where six astronauts and scientists from around the world live in six-month shifts. It’s actually designed to carry humans as well — it can fit as many as seven—but so far it has only taken gear. (It can carry 13,000 pounds of stuff at a time!)

I would love to see a rocket launch in person one day. In the meantime I just follow the International Space Station and NASA on Instagram — they post fun space news pretty much every day!

FACT #3:

Like Abby, I was a theater kid. I was also in the ensemble of a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella when I was in middle school, but I don’t have a picture of it to show you. Instead, here’s a photo of me in fifth grade playing a bird in a community theater production of Just So Stories. My choreographer is on the left, and my director is on the right.

I loved being on stage as a kid; I went to an arts camp every summer, and during the school year I’d audition for every community theater production I could find. But as I got older, I started getting really bad stage fright — it was very easy for me to write Abby’s panicked feelings during her audition since I’ve had those exact feelings myself many times. Like Abby, I’ve found ways to deal with it, and now I like being up in front of a group under the right circumstances.

FACT #4:

I’ve always said that I never base characters on people I know, but this book is an exception! Jenna, the girl Sydney desperately wants to be friends with, is based on one of my best friends, whose name is also Jenna. Like book Jenna, she is really interested in space and plays Dungeons & Dragons (though she is not the dungeon master like book Jenna).

This book originally ended with an in-depth D&D scene, and my Jenna taught me the ins and outs of the game so I could write it accurately. I feel a little bad that it ended up getting cut because she spent so much time explaining things to me! This is a picture of the two of us on a trip to Spain we took last Fall.

FACT #5:

This is my ninth book, and it’s the first one for which the cover designer did a special photo shoot instead of just using stock images! I was so excited when I saw that they’d dressed Abby the exact pink socks with stars I described and found Sydney the perfect combat boots.

I, too, am a huge fan of fun socks — one of my favorite things about winter is wearing knee-high socks with fun patterns that peek over the tops of my snow boots. The picture above is of two of my favorite pairs!

She’s the Liar is out today from Scholastic! Looking for even more sibling stories to add to your shelf? We think you’ll love Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn!