Let me start off by saying I love Elizabeth Acevedo’s work. I’ve devoured everything else she’s written. But sadly, I just didn’t feel really into or connected with this one. Her writing is amazing. I love quirky sisters. I think the jumping between POV and occasional timelines as well just had me struggling to keep up so much that I couldn’t really get into the story. I couldn’t keep the characters separate in my head. I enjoyed the ending and I think this will be a summer hit!

Elizabeth Acevedo's first foray into adult fiction is Family Lore, which is an ambitious, yet also intimate tale of a group of women in a family as they come together for a planned gathering to celebrate the life of one of them. We meet four sisters: Flor, Pastora, Mathilde, and Camila who immigrated from the Dominican Republic. Magic runs through some of these women. Flor can see death, and the novel begins with her deciding she wants a living wake for herself, but will provide no further context for the rationale to her sisters. We also meet the second generation of women in the form of two cousins Ona, who carries her own magical talent, and Flora. While Flor's living wake is the driving factor for the novel, Acevedo spends much of it chronicling each woman's individual struggles as well as her complicated relationship with the other women. She blends together the women's past and present leading up to Flor's living wake. At times it is a lot to keep track of but it's a worthwhile read on familial relationships and the push and pull of supporting one another and striving for one's own voice.

Thank you to Ecco for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

𝗙𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗬 𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗘 (pub 08.01) is Elizabeth Acevedo’s adult debut. I’ve read and loved all her previous books, especially on audio, and was hopeful this would join the ranks. It fell into the “good” category.⁣
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This nonlinear story is told from 6 different perspectives of the women in a Dominican-American family who have various “gifts”. The writing continues to have what I’ve come to love about Acevedo’s style- poignant, unflinching, and vivid. It transports you. ⁣
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The audio narration was superb and I enjoyed the glimpse into the immigrant experience. But because of the structure and multiple POVS- I had a difficult time truly connecting with the story.

I have been such a fan of Elizabeth Acevedo’s work for years and was soooo excited to hear about her adult debut and was THRILLED when I was given the e-arc from NG!

Spanning across countries and generations, Family Lore tells the story of one family’s history through multiple POVs ahead of a living wake being held for the eldest sister.

This story was so different than Acevedo’s other work but once I got in the swing of the style and story I really enjoyed it! The audio had me confusing some of the characters throughout the book but overall I loved the backstories, the present-day testimonies, and the growth for each character through the novel.

Acevado's first adult title was definitely a win for me. The way she wrote this family of women resonated so much with me. The different personalities and how they each brought something to the family dynamic was great to read.
I love how these women were written, showing their tough exterior but also their softness and vulnerabilities. The way they showed up for each other, but also allowed everyone to carve their own path, loved it.
There is also the way she payed homage to her Dominican roots, not translating the Spanish phrases, but allowing the reader to use context clues to figure it out themselves, while also infusing so much culture on the page.

4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for early access in exchange for this review.

I have been a fan of Elizabeth Acevedo for years! I use her poetry in my classroom and I recommend her YA novels to students and adults. I was so excited to read her first novel in this genre.

Family Lore tells the story of a Dominican-American family through the women in the Marte family. They are preparing for Flor’s living wake, and the novel chronicles the days leading up to the event. Sisters, Flor, Pastora, Matilde, and Camila are the older generation, but their story is accompanied by the younger generation, their daughters, to present a familial journey that shifts perspectives throughout the novel.

Acevedo captures details and emotion in the same way she does with poetry. The beginning of the novel includes an overview of characters that helps with understanding the family tree, and I referenced it throughout my reading. The beginning of the story was a little hard to follow because of all the characters and the shifting point of view. It’s worth it to hang in there. Family Lore is not YA, and it’s not written in verse. It shows a different side and depth that we haven’t seen from Elizabeth Acevedo.

Elizabeth Acevedo’s YA books have been some of my favorites in recent years and I was excited to read her first adult novel - a story of generations of Dominican women whose lives are intertwined. Beautiful. Couldn’t put it down.

Beautiful story of love, family, and life.
Acevedo takes me back and forth to Dominican Republic and New Year in this moving story.
Thank you to netgalley for the eArch.

Synopsis
Four aunts, two cousins, all Dominican. Each has their own special gift. One aunt is able to dream when someone is going to die. She calls everyone to arrange a living wake for herself, and everyone is like “wtf”. We read about them getting ready for the event, as well as travel to the past and learn about what has formed each woman.

Review
Wow, Acevedo really said, this is a grown folks book. YA who?? This is not for kids. I went in knowing her goal was to debut into adult fiction, but I didn’t expect the spice, not after reading her YA novels.

But the thing is, Acevedo’s writing is so beautiful, so poetic even in prose. The stories of each of the characters are ones to be read - because whether you know it or not, these women are your family.

Reading this novel, I felt a part of the family Marte.

Written from the point of view of each Marte woman, we see that the characters have such strong personalities (in the sense that each woman’s dominant trait could be felt through the page), they are very Dominican (iykyk), and you can feel the love between these women. I enjoyed the back and forth of the timeline. It wasn’t titled, but it was still easy to know when in their lives the story was taking place.

Mixed with Dominican history, this novel sparked a desire in me to learn more about my people’s ancestry.

Themes include: family trauma, secrets, mother/daughter bonds, womanhood, sisterhood

Pick Up or Put Down
Pre-order! You still have time to do so before this one is published.

Vibes
A hug just before releasing a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Thank you NetGalley and Ecco for this digital title in exchange for my honest review.

Acevedo’s first foray into adult fiction was definitely an interesting one. I love that she always weaves interconnected stories of families and that shines bright in this book, but overall it felt a bit disjointed at times and felt like things wrapped up a little too nicely.

Family Lore was a beautiful character study, showing the complicated relationships between the Marte sisters (and two of their children). I love how Acevedo wound the past and present together almost seamlessly. The novel takes course over three days in the present, but weaves its way decades back as it recounts the Marte sisters' lives growing up in the Dominican Republic and their futures thereafter. You can tell that Acevedo is a poet because her prose blooms and flowers across the page, creating a web of complicated relationships among the Marte family. Overall, Acevedo manages to elicit nostalgia, sisterhood, and the bonds of family. Family Lore is an incredibly special book that everyone should read.

Thanks to Ecco for the advance copy of this book!

I absolutely love Elizabeth Acevedo’s previous three books, but this one was a miss for me. There’s a lot of untranslated Spanish, a lot of POVs, and a lot of bodily fluids. While this didn’t work, I’ll still pick up her next book!

Thank you NetGalley and Ecco for an ARC of Family Lore in exchange for an honest review!

Elizabeth Acevedo writes poetically and the complex family dynamics in Family Lore hit close to home for me. Growing up in a predominantly matriarchal family, I see so myself and my own cousins and aunts in each of the characters. The struggles with cultural identity and the diasporic gap between generations are delicately but honestly captured through the various POVs. I highly recommend this to everyone but especially first gen kids.

Family Lore is out now!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the Advanced Copy of Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo. Definitely being added to my book club docket

Family saga with light magical realism that follows multiple generations of Dominican-American women in the week leading up to a mysterious family gathering. I struggled with the pacing and the narrative shifts felt disjointed, but this is undeniably a good book. Elizabeth Acevedo can write circles around the best.

This book is unbelievably beautiful. It’s the story of three generations of women, their relationships with their family, and their relationships with themselves. I went back and forth between the audiobook and e-book because I was so engrossed that I needed the book to follow me around. Acevedo’s writing is poetic and at times funny, and I loved being immersed in the Martes’ world. I highly recommend it to fans of historical fiction and novels centered on strong female characters. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-arc.

Elizabeth Acevedo can do no wrong.

It has been a delightful experience to witness Elizabeth's transformation into the icon she is today. I vividly remember reading her debut book and falling in love with her writing and characters. With each subsequent publication, she has established herself as one of my favorite authors. Her adult debut was incredible. These characters reminded me a lot of my own crazy Dominican family. This book is one that I will cherish for a very long time.

Is this the year of living funerals? Not sure how this concept seems to be trending but it’s an interesting narrative choice.

The large number of POVs (six!!) and non linear pattern make this a bit confusing to dive into and tease apart. We shift from the past to the present, from Santi Domingo to NYC and at moments in between, in the past and near past for each woman. Ultimately, this served to start to meld all the women together, yes in a way that combined to tell a multifaceted history and family narrative, but also in a way that made it feel like each of the characters didn’t get enough space to feel like their own unique person.

We zoom in and out of each of the woman’s lives, which made the intimacy feel like a rollercoaster and again, making it hard to feel like there’s time to settle in and connect with one singular character. I couldn’t find the space to sit in my feelings to the struggles of each character, to feel the words and feelings wash into to, because the next chapter feels like a reset, moving on to another sister or cousin with their own set of feelings and struggles that may happen entirely separately from the previous chapter.

Where Acevedo’s YA novels are so compelling for diving head first into that intimacy with one or two main characters, including a look at how all the family and secondary character actions impact the MC, here it became hard to feel that sense of grounding and focus. Each of the women has their own lives and struggles, their secrets and the ripples those create within the family, yet it’s hard to see where the ripples from others begin and where another character’s personal struggles begin and end. This may be purposeful by the author to demonstrate the intricate connection a family has on all its members, but it just didn’t quite work for me in terms of being invested. It’s less of a cause and effect, how one sister impacts the next, or how one event impacts each sister or cousin at the same time, but mostly how the family and history has impacted each of them and their own unique circumstances, so in this way I found the connective storytelling tissue hard to track.

This does however lovingly render so many struggles women undergo, it’s raw and vulnerable, and I applaud the author for giving voice to so many of these feelings and trauma.

I encourage others to pick this up as it might register better with you. I think the intent and hope of those story is wonderful, I just wish I felt a greater sense of connected storytelling.

How to explain the brilliance that was this book? I am in love with family sagas and with tracing back our families' experiences that ripple back to us. Acevedo takes her poetry genius and puts into amazing prose that you bite into and is delicious! The book drips with words and sentences that leave you breathless. This book begins with Flor watching a documentary and getting inspired to have a living wake. This sends the whole family of four sisters and daughters into a tizzy because Flor has a gift! She's able to predict when someone will die! Does this mean that Flor has seen her own death or is this just a celebration of her life as she's said? This living wake pulls the rug under her sisters, Pastora, Matilde, and Camila who must now confront their own past and current journeys. Matilde with a philandering husband who has shown his true colors since their wedding night, Pastora who had a difficult relationship with her mother (to say the least) and was punished for things beyond her control, and Camila, the baby of the family, who was spared the cruelty of her mother and lives an affluent life unknown to the other sisters but deals with feeling like an outsider to their circle. Each of the sisters and the next generation has gifts that are weaved into this story of a Dominican-American family who survives and thrives a myriad of experiences, all while showcasing a sisterly love that I hadn't read quite like this before. A MUST READ! We are so blessed to live in the time of Acevedo.

Thank you to netgalley for giving me me a chance to read this book.

Encanto with adult themes. And as someone that cries every time I watch the Disney Encanto, you can imagine how many tears were shed reading this!

This was my first Elizabeth Acevedo and I am not surprised to see that she is a poetic. The prose were gorgeous and made beautiful storytelling that much more incredible.