Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Family Lore

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Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

15 reviews

_weirdreads13's review

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

I am so disappointed with this lecture. As a Puertorrican (I'm a fellow Caribbean, I have an attachment to La Kiskeya), I really really wanted to loved this book, to the point that I would love to have it in my shelf. Elizabeth really had a good premise for the book: the story of a family saga and a woman grieving her life and family. I think the lack of depth in the stories of the character's is what made me lack enjoying and connecting with the book. Another thing that I felt was a "killing vibe" of my lecture was the jumping between times (present and past). I think the timeline in the stories will change suddenly and without any given reason or connection. I even wrote down what I felt needed more depth in the story:

The different perspective between the daughters and their mothers: It's obvious that Mamá Silvia, Flor, Pastora, Camila, Ona and Yadira had different relationship with their mothers, according to the time each one were born. Why Mamá Silvia despised her daughters, except Camila? How Flor and Pastora view sex, different from their daughters that were exposed to a different culture?
Silvia's and Susano's past: if this is a family saga, why was not the past of the matriarch and the patriarch included? It was because of them that everything started. And don't think "but then Elizabeth would have to start with Mamá's and Papá's family", no, this is the story of the Marte family, and because of them and how they raised their kids is why the story developed itself.
La Vieja's mount: how did she get mounted? It will be interested to see more in depth this character and the impact she had on Pastora and Flor.
More about Samuel, the brother: what do you mean you are going to give me a family saga and leave out the brother?! "It's a tale of sisters". No, it's a family saga. What was his role in the family history? How he impacted the sisters' life?
Flor and Nazario: developing a "relationship" between them, making something happened would make Flor to have a deep secret. I feel that what happened in the book was superficial.
Camila: she was the youngest of the daughter and she was raised differently from her sisters and, again, it's a family saga and she was not often included in the story nor how was her relationship with Flor, Matilde, Pastora, Samuel, Mamá and Papá. Adding her by the last part of the book was not in the bingo card, which takes me to the next point.
The connection that could develop between Pastora and Camila: they have something in common, they are the youngest of the children and both were harassed by the same pendejo. I would love for their story and relationship to have more depth.
Matilde's marriage: again, superficiality is what killed the depth and connection of the character's and their story.
Flor's character: the main character, the next matriarch, the person who the story goes around the story of her marriage? Which is the "continuation" of the Marte family? And the struggles the marriage went through? Flor's feelings toward her marriage and life in general?
Ona's infertility: the daughter's story was like reading a teenager's story: confusing, suddenly changing, emotionally and irrational with their love story. What Ona really wanted? How it affected her? How it affected her relationship?
The nun: another character who is from the family and you are not going to tell me the impact of the character on the Marte family?
Yadira's role in the book: the most misunderstood character. I didn't understood her role nor the reason of her perspective in the book.
Flor's role in her family: for me, Flor was the most special of the family (obvio), but I wish to see more of her role in the family.
Flor's grief: by the end of the book we can understand that Flor knew she was dying. It will be so cool an amazing to see more of the process of Flor grieving her life while she reminiscence of the past. This would have give the story a huge different perspective on every story of the Marte family (which remind me of Erik Erikson's theory: despair vs integrity, the last "stage" of a person's life. I'm not saying that the book should be an analysis of Flor's life, but I believe I put this here because I've been studying for my test, LOL!)

As a person who is fascinated by people and their story (if you couldn't noticed by me involving psychology theories, LOL), I really really wanted to love this book. I will give the benefit of the doubt to Elizabeth, because it was her first adult novel. I will read from her too Clap When You Land which is kind of too another "family saga" and see if there is difference between the two genres and how she writes them.

In conclusion: this book had so much potential but it felt superficial.

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frida_epilogo's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

Content Warnings

nikogatts's review

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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now_booking's review

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This is an autobuy author for me. I’m not a huge fan of YA fiction but in Elizabeth Acevedo’s hands, I’m typically sold. So when I heard she had released her first adult novel, I rushed to get it. And I’m not disappointed.

This is a multigenerational or maybe inter generational family history of the Marte family over 3 generations…. Set around middle Marte sister and dreamer of death’s, Flor’s, sudden desire to have a living wake, this is a story of mothers and daughters, sisters and aunties and the complex and essential nature of those relationships across a life span.

I overall liked this- it’s very much in the mysticism / literary fiction lane, whether with Flor’s ability to predict deaths in her dreams, or Pastora’s ear for discerning the truth, or Camilla’s ability to heal with herbs, or Matilde’s gift of embodying music, or whether it’s having evil aunt’s possessed or a daughter (Ona) with her pride in her “alpha” genitalia, this recollection of the Marte women’s history and collective experience across generations reads almost as a memoir and provides proud insights into Dominican culture and heritage.

I’m typically not a fan of novels where the timelines jump about but here Ona, the main narrator, an anthropologist documenting her family history, manages to make this not so jarring and few seem less. The Martes feel real- perhaps because this is not a memoir of one person but rather of the women in the family, the stories stop and start naturally. These are not women with “and then…” stories that build to some unattainable finale. These are snippets of memory and anecdotes like we all have, like we’re familiar with from grandmothers, mothers and aunts. They’re pockets of stories that help you understand the characters and guess how they came to be in their current state, but they feel like memories and character development rather than full on plot. That’s not to say that this book has no plot, it’s clearly a story of how a family faces their mortality and their heritage at an inflection point of the potential impending death of a matriarch.

For me, this ultimately felt like a story about love- the difficulty and misunderstandings and errors in demonstrating love between mothers and daughters but also around romantic love and heartbreak and the hope of healing. I overall enjoyed this. I perhaps wish there had been a bit more story about characters I cared about like Yadi and Ant… or perhaps Ona and Jeremiah. Perhaps I wished for a bit more comfort of the pastoral bits of happiness. I think I understand what the author wanted to do with this book but at the same time felt that by spreading the storytelling net so wide and not getting very deep, the book did not resonate as much. The writing was of course solid, the scenarios super relatable or otherwise empathy-provoking. You can’t read this without feeling something. And yet, it didn’t feel complete or as whole… perhaps the characters felt a little shortchanged… but perhaps that’s also intentional by the author…you never know anything about anyone and perhaps by approaching this book in this way, we are left with the same gaps in knowledge and questions and curiousities that exist in our own family lore.

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lizmart88's review

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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? No

3.0

I found this to be a sweet novel, if a little anti-climactic at the end. The ending is what one would expect and it lacked as much of an emotional punch as I wanted. The story takes place over three days - as oldest daughter Flor plans for her living wake. Flor and her sisters and daughter and niece all have various supernatural powers. Flor can tell when someone is going to die. It follows all of them as they grapple with the impact of Flor's wake and their own choices in life.

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fkshg8465'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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magsapt's review

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emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-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? Yes

4.0

Family Lore is the story of how three generations of women survived, adapting to circumstances, to misogyny and, most importantly, to each other. It is a book about trauma, life and, above all, death - how to prepare for it, how to accept it and how to just let go.
Sometimes you do not realise how good a book is until you discuss it with someone and a few days have passed. Family Lore is one of Acevedo's best books, although it was not always my favourite as I read it. And this, I must confess, has nothing to do with the author's inability to tell a story or write beautiful prose (a style we're not used to seeing Acevedo use), but with my own biases. My only problem with this book was

Ona's power, and that says more about me than the author. It made me realise how embarrassed I still feel when it comes to talking about female sexuality and how, even though I'm a woman, I still have a lot of work to do to get comfortable with the topic. Do I think Ona's power was best suited to this story? Not really. But should it have made me uncomfortable? I don't think so. And why should it, if it's just a woman talking about her connection to her body? Ona is confident about her sexuality and writes about it openly, without taboos or shame. That's one of the lessons I think we should take from this story, an example to follow rather than perpetuate the shame around it.

What I really liked, though, was the multiple POVs, which worked wonders for me. I think Acevedo knew how to give each character a distinct voice. The author is a master at exploring relationships. This was undoubtedly the best part of the book. We got to know each woman's feelings for the other and how their dynamic changed over time as they married and had children.
However, even though this is a book about women, for women, I would've liked to see more

of brother Samuel, even if only to see how he relates to his wife and daughters. We see that after he got married he stopped being close to his siblings (which is unfortunate), but I don't think his POV would have damaged the story. On the contrary, I think it would have enriched it because his daughters have powers and his wife didn't like that. Samuel's daughters grew up without support, estranged from their father's family, and away from strong and independent women, and I would have loved to see Acevedo's perspective on that.

Something the author excelled at was her description of emotional abuse and how people can actually change.

Mamá Sílvia was the most complex character in this story and her arc was brilliant. Nothing in the world is enough to forgive her for the abuse she inflicted on Pastora, but I would like to think that she learned something from it and tried to make amends through Yadi.

It was beautiful to see.
Overall, I give this book a perfect 4-star rating. It has some things that could've definitely been better, but the story, the plot and the creativity (characteristic of Acevedo) will warm your heart.

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celery's review

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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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clairelisebella's review

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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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minimijn's review

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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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