Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo was one of my highly anticipated reads so I was very excited to receive an ARC for this one but I was quite frankly a little disappointed.

The whole concept of Flor being able to tell when death comes & her creating her own living wake seemed like the coolest concept to me but I was completely overwhelmed with the writing style.

I don't know if it was the multiple POV's or the way that the story was written but it was unbelievably hard for me to get into.

Unfortunately this was something that fell very flat for me.

Set in NYC and the Dominican Republic, Acevedo's newest novel brings us deep into a family of mothers and daughters, sisters and wives. Flor is one of 4 siblings: the oldest is Mathilde, then Pastor, Flor, and the baby, Camila. Growing up the sisters each had their own gifts but Flor's ability to predict death was the most notorious. Now in her 70's, Flor has had another dream, this time it's of her on impeding departure. Flor wants to have a living wake, a party, before she leaves, to celebrate with her family and friends, instead of a traditional wake after her death filled with grief. The entire begins at 6 weeks before the wake, but the majority of it takes place in the days leading up to the wake. Here we are introduced to the coming of age stories of the characters and the general dynamics within the family.

This is a slow burn character-driven family saga type of novel. There are a lot of characters to keep track of. I found myself referring to the family relationships at the beginning of the novel many times until I figured out who was who and who was related to who. The story just didn't grip me as much as Acevedo's previous YA novels.

Thank you to Ecco and Netgalley for an early digital review copy of this novel. It is available on 8/1/23.

Family Lore
Elizabeth Acevedo
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
Ecco
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Acevedo definitely has a way with words.
However, this was not a pleasant reading experience for me, I know this book will impact many upon its release, unfortunately it wasn’t me.
3 stars

Acevedo's adult debut is full of depth and harmony, sussing out the hurts and highs of a long standing family with magical powers as they must deal with their concerns and issues.

Strong points (in my opinion):
* interesting well developed main characters
* lovely descriptions of the Dominican Republic
* unusual plot
* magic abilities that were fun and appropriate to the story
* based on author’s real life family

Difficult parts (in my opinion):
* a good share of Spanish phrases/dialogue that was hard to decipher the meaning from context
* a lot of characters from multiple generations that were a challenge to keep straight along with their jobs and partners and personal history
* multiple POV that moved back and forth in time and were interspersed through the novel

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for the ARC to read and review.

This book was not for me.

First and foremost - with so much content related to various miscarriages and conception issues a content warning should have been a must. I would never had picked it up if I had realized.

Also, even with translating on the e reader, there were language barriers on phrases. I can’t imagine if I had tried to follow it on audio or with a hard copy.

Outside of that, the story itself was hard to follow. There were so many characters to keep track of, especially with how quickly it switched between the characters in the different generations.

I'm not fully sure what to make of this book that took me on a whirlwind journey. It took me a bit of time to understand and adapt to the format through which this story is told. I wasn't sure which women were which at first because their were similarities to each of their stories. Though I soon realized how different they were. At times I questioned what I was reading. At times I vehemently agreed. I saw pieces of my own mother and aunties in the tias in this story. We're following women who are dealing with straying husbands, fertility issues, desires and sexuality.

I think anyone expecting this to be like Acevedo's YA books is in for a rude awakening because it is so ambitious and different from from anything you've read by her before. At first it's presented as the story of two generations of women coming together to celebrate the living wake of one of their own. But it follows a non linear timeline that isn't the easiest to keep track of as we read about these women in their rawest form. Overall it's an engaging tale that ends on just the right note.

Family Lore is vastly different from Acevedo’s previous novels but it’s still full of her beautiful writing. I loved this book and will 100% pick it up again — I’ve already pre-ordered my hardcover.

It did take me a moment to understand the format of the story, specifically Ona’s first person interjections. I wonder if this would be more clear in the print version (vs this early ebook copy).

Thank you for adding the family tree at the start! A story like this really benefits from the resource.

I've enjoyed Acevedo's YA writing in the past, so I was extremely intrigued by this book. Sadly, I had a hard time getting invested in this book. There were too many main characters and storyline, making it disjointed and very difficult to follow.

This book is about the bond between 4 sisters: Matilde, Flor, Pastora, and Camila and two of their daughters. We learn that although the sisters now live in New York, they came from a humble upbringing in DR. The story is told with flashbacks of each of the sister's upbringing and their interpretation of what was happening during their young ages. We see how the bond between Flor and Pastora leads Flor to rescue her sister from somebody who was supposed to be caring for her. Later these 2 sisters will be inseparable as they move to a larger city and then New York, not together but seeming to follow each other.
Each member of this family has also been blessed with a gift of some sort... Everybody except for Matilde. Flor knows when people near her will die because she has vivid dreams about it. Pastora can sense when people are telling the truth/lying about something. Camila can create home remedies, with herbs and such to treat almost any illness.
The sisters are hyper-focused on Flor throughout the book because she has had a dream that she refuses to share with anybody - leading everybody to speculate that she's dreamed about when she will die. Flor decides that the best way she can deal with her dream is by holding a wake for herself, where everybody whom is special to her can attend. Matilde also has a secret she is trying to keep from the sisters. Her husband of many years is cheating (again). While the sisters are trying to figure out exactly what is happening with Flor, they are also trying to be supportive to Matilde and try to get her to see herself as being deserving of a better husband. The time that was supposed to be a gathering of family to celebrate and spend time together, is threatened when Matilde shares that her marriage is not a place her sisters belong.
This book was great because it showed the struggles that can happen within a family, when they each just want what is best for each other.

I really wanted to enjoy this story as a fan of Acevodo’s previous YA works. This story didn’t work for me because of the fragmented writing structure. The plot abruptly jumped from many POVs and past and present and it wasn’t fluid.

I love generational family sagas and frequently say that I feel like I'm looking to recreate the experience of reading 100 Years of Solitude for the first time. This book is as close as I've gotten to experiencing that feeling!

An interesting generational saga from Acevedo. I loved the different story lines and how the family all came together. The more mature scenes definitely make this an adult read in my book, but a very good one!

A rich tale of the many ways the women in a Dominican-American family love and help one another across generations.

The women in the Marte family are known to have unusual gifts. With Flor, it is her ability to predict the death of people in her dreams. She has had the ability since she was just a girl in the Dominican Republic, and she is not always sure that it is a gift as much as a curse. She moved to the US and with her husband Pedro raised their daughter Ona, an anthropologist who teaches at nearby City College specializing in the history of the land of her ancestors. When Flor announces that she wants to host a living wake for herself, it sends her sisters and extended family into a panic. Is this Flor’s way of announcing her own death? Or something else? She doesn’t explain what she is doing or why, she just starts assigning tasks to different members of her family….the niece who will do the catering, a sister who will do the flowers, and so on. As the story progresses, we meet Flor’s three sisters: Pastora, whose gift allows her to determine the honesty of anyone with whom she speaks; Matilde, who embodies the passion of dance when she hears music: and Camila, who knows just what ingredients to combine to provide a person with the perfect remedy for what troubles them, even before they realize they need it. Theirs is neither the first nor the last generation to have such gifts, it is a magic that flows from one set of women to another, though it is never the same for any of them. Ona is tasked by her mother to interview all of the relatives, to record their stories in their own words, for the upcoming wake, and this is how we come to know of the struggles, the triumphs, the love, the pain, and the courage of the Marte women. And perhaps that is all that Flor has wanted by hosting this party all along.
Ms Acevedo has her own gift, one that uses language in a rich and beautiful way. The characters come alive as they speak to and about one another, when they fight and tease, comfort and encourage. None has led an easy life, and there are secrets that have been held from one another. There are bonds between aunt and niece, between certain pairings of sisters but not others, and although there are or have been men in these women’s lives, they are not in the end what has sustained them. As chapters jump from being narrated by one character to another, the reader has to stay focused on just who is speaking at a given moment, and how what they have to say furthers the woven fabric of the family’s lives. From their childhoods in the countryside of the Dominican Republic, then with subsequent moves first to the capital city of Santo Domingo and finally New York City, the time and setting of each morsel of history shifts back and forth. Husbands that stray, loves that cannot be pursued, babies that can’t be conceived, all must be endured, while the American-born generation grapples with their own struggles between the traditions and values of the home country and those of the new. All the while, each wonders what exactly Flor wants to accomplish with this completely untraditional party, and what they will do if what they fear is at the root of it all indeed comes to pass. I have not read Ms Acevedo’s earlier, young adult works, but I suspect that fans of those works will equally enjoy this tale of love, magic, and the power of family. Readers who enjoy tales of family with a Latin American or Caribbean flavor (Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz and Jamaica Kincaid come to mind) would be wise to pick up a copy of Family Lore. I thoroughly enjoyed the language, the glimpses of Dominican culture, and above all else the bonds of love between these extraordinary women. Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins/Ecco Press for allowing me access to an advanced reader’s copy of Family Lore.

Acevedo makes the reader fall in love with every character in this collection of lore. She offers "a nation of women who undulate to a musical all their own." And "they will wade through shit for you, because that is loving." The individual lore is a work that is done as an act of "searching for a truth of a people and place." The novel is a construction and claiming of magic, "as power as any second sight or inclination toward healing." Family Lore "puts Dominicans on the map." These pages bring "fire and smoke - the conduit to the divine."

“It amazes me how few questions I know to ask, or whom to ask them of, until it's already too late for the answers to be useful. How do lineages of women from colonized places, where emphasis is put on silent enduring, learn when and where to confide in their own family if forbearance is the only attitude elevated and modeled?)“

This book and its characters burrowed deep inside me. I fell in love with all sisters and their daughters. I already miss Yadi, Ona, Camilla, Matilde, Pastora, and Flor.

This novel speaks of strong women and inter generational trauma, of death and living. This book is about so much - assimilation, belonging, home, home, intimacy, etc. I could not put it down. Beautiful book.

This was a book I didn’t know I wanted until it ended up on my radar. A multigenerational story, infused with magic, rich in culture, with the build-up leading to that of a living wake, and, to boot, it’s Acevedo writing adult? You couldn’t sign me up fast enough.

And when I started, I honestly thought it would be a favourite. But alas it was not meant to be.

Unfortunately, despite the name of the character sitting at the top for each chapter to prelude the POV switch, I found it hard to keep track of some of these personalities. Mostly because only two really stood out. And most, though they had their differences of course, were just too much the same. Adding confusion, too, was the shift in timelines, the jumping around of flashbacks, the occasional interview transcript.. it made it hard to stay grounded in a story that, more and more, wasn’t gripping me as hard as I expected it to.

This likely isn’t meant to be a story that does big things. I think it’s supposed to be slow, to explore, and I appreciate that. But unfortunately I do think it was meant to be emotional or impactful but once the wake was over, well.. it was over. Things happen quickly and abruptly after that and then we’re done. But even beyond that, some of the time we spent with the characters, sometimes it didn’t feel worth it. Or I wondered why it was there. Or I just didn’t like them.

The good in here was good. But unfortunately, for me, it was rather overwhelmed by the rest. I think this was maybe took on more than it should’ve and the momentum, the pacing, any kind of build-up beyond the wake itself, just didn’t really exist. Or maybe it wasn’t there to begin with and I wanted something from this that it never was. Maybe both. But either way, here we are.

If you’re a fan of Acevedo, I’m sure you’re going to pick this up regardless of any naysaying early reviews. And I wouldn’t try to convince you not to. But if you’re expecting the same kind of magic we had from her YA novels, I would maaaaybe caution you to lower your expectations just a smidge. But I do hope fans of said novels also enjoy this. I’m just not one of them.

2.5 stars

10/10 story, 6/10 presentation. I grew up with a latino mother so a lot of the book hit very close to home, but the back and forth between characters was very hard to keep up with. I couldn't figure out who was whos aunt and sister even halfway through the book. but I loved the stories nonetheless.

DNF at 30 percent. Unfortunately the multiple povs in this book made it very hard for me to connect to the characters. I was constantly getting them confused. Looking at other early reviews, I can see I’m not the only one with this struggle.
The writing is very beautiful and I think for the right audience, this will be very successful. I love this author and have read everything by her so far so I plan on reading more by her in the future. This was just a miss for me.

Really enjoyed the writing of this author's first adult novel. The characters felt very real and fleshed out - but I think I wanted more to actually happen. The magical realism aspect was never going to be my favorite, but I also felt like it could have factored in more/differently.