Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Family Lore: A Good Morning America Book Club Pick by Elizabeth Acevedo

59 reviews

allisonwatkins's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility and Infidelity

fkshg8465's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Excrement, Infidelity, Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Deportation, Medical content, Rape, Body shaming, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Blood, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Grief, Infertility, and Pregnancy

atamano's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Misogyny, and Infidelity

Moderate: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Death, Classism, Sexual assault, Grief, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Abandonment, Racism, and Alcoholism

Minor: Blood, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, and Infertility

hazelgirl21's review against another edition

emotional 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Infertility

Minor: Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Confinement

celery's review against another edition

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

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: Infidelity, Death, Death of parent, and Infertility

Moderate: Pregnancy

psistillreadyou's review against another edition

I didn't care for the characters and the sexual content was too graphic for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Sexual content, Miscarriage, and Infidelity

Moderate: Child abuse

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: Death of parent, Alcoholism, and Infertility

clairelisebella's review against another edition

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, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

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

readingpicnic's review against another edition

5.0

Wow, this book is incredible! I haven’t been so caught up in a fiction book in so long. I loved how complicated all the characters were, how distinct their voices were, the little powers they had, everything! The alpha vagina power? Incredible. I love the humor in this book so much. The food descriptions were excellent as always, as Elizabeth Acevedo clearly writes with so much passion and love for food and how it's made and enjoyed as a community. All of the different generations of women with points of view in this story did such a good job showing generational trauma within this family and cycles of abuse, as well as just how complicated familial relationships are in general. I love everything Elizabeth Acevedo has written, but this is a new favorite.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, and Domestic abuse