Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo ~ 384 pages ~ to be published on August 1, 2023 by Ecco
Goodreads Synopsis:
Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake–a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led–her sisters are surprised. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.
But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband’s infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor’s wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling’s problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she’s decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted.
And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own: Yadi is reuniting with her first love, who was imprisoned when they were both still kids; Ona is married for years and attempting to conceive. Ona must decide whether it’s worth it to keep trying–to have a child, and the anthropology research that’s begun to feel lackluster.
Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces–one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.
What I Thought:
*I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Ecco for this ARC!*
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I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Acevedo’s work, so I was very excited to get a chance to read her first adult novel, Family Lore. It is a bit of magical realism, a bit of historical fiction, and a bit of family drama.
I did really like the characters. It was fun getting to know each of the Marte sisters/daughters more as the novel progressed. Each of them had a very unique voice, which is hard to pull off when there is such a full cast of characters. Acevedo has always had such a lyrical storytelling style, and it lent itself well to this novel.
Now, I have to say that, while I liked the characters, I was confused a lot of the time as to who was who in relation to the other characters. It took me quite a while to figure out which characters were the sisters and which were the daughters, and who was whose daughter. I do wish this had been laid out in a different manner. Potentially it would have been easier in a physical copy of the book, as there was a list of characters at the beginning, but I was reading an e-book copy, so it was hard to go back and forth to check it. This was something that troubled me throughout the novel, so it colored my opinion of it quite a bit.
I liked the jumps into the past that helped to explain what was happening in the present. Getting to learn more about Santo Domingo was cool, as I know very little about it. I love how the Acevedo sprinkles her culture throughout the novel like seasoning.
Overall, it was a good story, but I wish it had been laid out in a slightly less confusing manner. This is also the first of Acevedo’s books I have not read as an audiobook. I would be curious to see if that would make a difference in my experience.
My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I gave Family Lore 3 Stars!
Are you interested in learning more about this book? Check out the links below!
Have you read any of Elizabeth Acevedo’s other works? Which one is your favorite? Are you a fan of magical realism? Let’s chat down in the comments!
Love and happy reading,
Whitney
Whit Reads Lit 