Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Family Lore

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Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

73 reviews

odreadingtime's review

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emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lindsaylhunter's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It took me a good half of the book to start to feel immersed in it, but I do think the payoff was worth it. A story about inheritance, family and relying on others to find your true self.

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yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

2.0

Finished reading: August 6th 2024

"It’s silly to have a nickname for a nickname, but we’d always loved taking apart each other’s names and seeing how else we could arrange the letters into love."

I'm honestly still shocked this happened. I absolutely loved Elizabeth Acevedo's YA books, and I confess that I added Family Lore without even reading the blurb first. I hadn't realized it was her adult fiction debut, and I hadn't realized it was going to be a family saga with a magical realism vibe... Because I probably wouldn't be in such a hurry to read it otherwise. This type of family sagas doesn't usually work all that well for me, although there have been exceptions in the past... But sadly Family Lore wasn't one of them. I have to stress here that this is by no means a badly written book; it's simply a case of me not being a good fit for this story. Add the fact that my fickle reading mood has been acting up again, and this type of slower and more character-driven stories just don't work for me at the moment, and it's definitely a 'it's not you, it's me' problem. Family Lore is 100% a magical realism family saga a la Gabriel García Márquez, and if you enjoy this kind of stories you will most likely enjoy Family Lore as well. There is a huge cast of characters involved and a multiple POV structure to consider where we learn more about the lives of most of them. Make sure to brace yourself for a LOT of drama and issues! For me personally they overshadowed the truly interesting (and magical realism) part of the plot, but then again I'm never a fan of family drama in the first place. Like I said before, I simply wasn't a good match for Family Lore! That will teach me to read the blurb first even if I've loved the author's work in the past...

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thejadedhippy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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just_one_more_paige's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I have read a few of Acevedo's YA novels (in verse and prose), The Poet X and With the Fire on High. And they were both phenomenal. And so, I was really excited to pick this, her first adult novel, up.

Here's the blurb from Goodreads: "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."

There were a lot of narrative voices in this novel. We heard from Flor, and all her sisters, as well as her daughter Ona and niece Yadi. And normally I appreciate this style of storytelling, but in this case, I found it to be rather confusing. There was a lot of jumping around both in whose perspective we were in and what time period (look back/past or present-day). Plus, there were some snippets that were "interview" style, as Ona was working on her anthropological research and was conducting recorded conversations with her family members. And, in the time honored tradition of families everywhere (especially female family members and, not from personal experience but definitely what I've gleaned from literature, Latin(a) family members), there is quite a bit of talking about each other. All that to say, I really did struggle to follow who was who. and who was narrating. and what was happening to who, and when it was happening to them. I did eventually settle, mostly, into the narrations and characters connections, but this is definitely not a novel one can passively read (or listen to, in my case...of note here, the audiobook narrators were fantastic).

One aspect I was really impressed by, and that should come as no surprise considering Acevedo's reputation, was the absolutely gorgeous writing. You can tell her background in poetry from the deftness of the wordplay and flow and the rhythm in the writing. So smooth, so good. I also am always here for a classic Spanish/Latin literature vibe of intergenerational family with abilities that border on magic (magical realism). In the vein of Like Water for Chocolate and anything from Garcia Marquez, this hits. But there was also an irreverence to it here that I loved. The thematic threads of this book were anchored in a unique and open and creative examination of female bodies/pleasure (mostly self), including menopause and fertility and breastfeeding and masturbation and many other aspects that everyone is afraid to talk about, and therefore never see enough light/normalization. It’s a beautiful conversation about something that should always be considered that beautiful, but instead is labeled vulgar and loose. That spoke to my soul and was an absolute highlight of the reading experience for me.

On the whole though...I don't know. This novel had all the elements. I simply loved some trajectories - Yadi and Matilde in particular - and in general the way they all moved and wove together as a family, as women, and the overall message of how women support each other, but don’t always talk about the things that would actually be helpful. And yet, something was missing in the novel as a whole, some piece that would have made it great. Maybe the pacing (it felt a bit slow, surprising considering the number of characters we were following) or maybe how hard I had to work to piece everything together or maybe that the ending(s) felt a bit anticlimactic for me? But in the end, while this was a very solid overall read, it was not as special as I'd hoped. I definitely think she shines more in her YA work.

“Some things take time to cure. Candles aren’t candles until they’ve hardened in the dark and can be turned on without the wax melting before the flame can consume it. Soap isn’t soap until the lye and lather binds. Rum takes weeks of adding honey and bay leaf and wine before it can be called or served as mama-juana. Cannabis even needs darkness, to shed itself of moisture, before becoming something that will burn, heal. You’re in a curing season.”

“How do you learn to live with what will not be? How do you console yourself with the life that you have when the humans you love most are hopeful for more than you?”

“I like to think there was a time, before our mothers, and theirs, and theirs and theirs, some great-great who knew her own pleasure. A time before we were wrapped in corsets, and courtships, and the approximation of proper. I like to think we were nations of women who undulated to a music all our own.”

“We learned in the shadows, when boys who should not, did. When girls we loved loved us back, right? We learned in the big beds of other people’s parents, didn’t we? On a rare occasion, we might have even learned in the sunlight. We might have learned in the quiet. We learned as we listened to the still, to the loudness of our hearts. But not from our mothers.”

“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?”

“And I know the heart is a burial ground for memories that shame and hurt. You can visit and place flowers there and make it a tomb. Or let those things act as fertilizer and pay no homage.”

“…all of us are magic wrapped in skin.”

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crabbytaco's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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himpersonal's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was full of pain, love, self-discovery, and sisterhood. All great ingredients for a good story. Rounding up to a four. I was satisfied with the ending, surprised by some of the middle, and enjoyed the novelty of the beginning.

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