Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

44 reviews

celery's review

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-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

4.75

How many different words do you need to describe a vagina?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

saucy_bookdragon's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

"But nothing has ever felt as warm as being known so well that someone could hand you a monstrosity they made with their own hands after learning you."

Family Lore has a lot of great ingredients for a great book. As usual, Elizabeth Acevedo's prose is absolutely delicious, I want to eat it! There's also a lot of great themes and character moments in this. In particular, this looks at womanhood in a complicated but loving family structure, also this is very unabashed in how it explores sexuality. I also found Ona really interesting (her magical power is, and I shit you not, a magical super-vagina) and I liked the family dynamics.

Despite all the great parts of Family Lore, it's a bit underbaked. There's too many POVs and the plot is meandering across a long timeline in a non-linear way, to the point this feels like an anthology of slice of life stories. At one point I even forgot that this was about a woman who can predict deaths having a living wake. With this many somewhat unrelated plotlines and backstories, I couldn't care for them all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infertility, Infidelity, and Death of parent

Moderate: Pregnancy

caitgiam's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

2.75

I loved this in theory and the writing was beautiful as always with Elizabeth Acevedo. 

I felt like the editing needed work. It was hard to connect with the characters which I think was mostly due to the amount of perspectives as well as the shifting timelines. There were alot of details to keep straight and not quite enough development on any one character. At times it felt like multiple different books combined and I felt myself flowing in and out of interest. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity

Moderate: Alcoholism, Infertility, and Death of parent

clairelisebella's review

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I can’t put my finger on why this book didn’t work for me. It had a lot of good things going for it — I love magical realism, multi-gen family sagas, and a dark/macabre tone. But it just didn’t land. The pacing was off, the format with the sporadic transcripts and asides from Ona were unbalanced, and the intermixed Spanish felt distracting instead of immersive. I inched through it and I’m glad I finished it, but I didn’t have anything pushing me forward. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcoholism, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Vomit, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

minimijn's review

emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

5.0

Lovely read with excellent format!! Very poetic, would recommend to everyone!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Alcoholism, Miscarriage, and Sexual harassment

starsincline's review

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, and Pregnancy

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, and Excrement

bedtimesandbooks's review

emotional 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Classism

Moderate: Sexual content

nabreu93's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Death of parent

brianarinaldo's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

ali1311's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

This book was very intimate and Elizabeth Acevedo has a formidable way with words. That said, this story fell a bit flat for me, which I was disappointed by. I loved all the characters and even though there were a lot of people to remember and perspectives, I liked knowing about each of them. However, the narrative felt a bit disjointed and I only figured out the narrative style about halfway through the book. I would read a full book about any of these characters, and while that’s praise for Acevedo’s ability to create background in a person’s story, it also means it felt like it wasn’t diving into anyone’s one perspective as deeply as it could’ve. The end was bittersweet but somewhat predictable and there were certain times I felt like I was just being inundated with information that wasn’t contributing to the story as much as I would’ve enjoyed. Overall, it was a worthy read and the themes and characters were handled with care and a poetic intimacy that rivals no one, but I wanted a bit more out of the story as a whole.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual assault