Reviews with content warning for Violence - Family Lore

This is not at all what I had expected. The writing was beautiful, as always with Acevedo, so I wasn't surprised by that. The topics and the way things are discussed so openly and intimately that it feels almost intrusive is what caught me off guard. I loved the way that the stories were all intertwined and how new bits and pieces of each character are revealed as the story progressed. There were some scenes and topics that made me stop and process the things that weren't being said. I am torn on how I feel about the end because it felt so sudden yet it also gave perfect closure. The full circle moment of new life at the same moment of death was perfect. I have still been thinking about this book even though I finished it a couple of days ago.

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cadence99's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful 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

This was a fantastic first read for me from Elizabeth Acevedo. Her writing is deeply lyrical, and drew me in so easily to the narrative of this family’s story. Thought it’s not normally my favorite format, I REALLY loved the shifting points of view and flashes back and forth between timelines here. In written form, the flow felt so natural, weaving in remembrances of life as the book simultaneously works toward its conclusion. However, I’m really glad that I read a physical copy and not audio, because I think I would’ve had a much more difficult time following the narrative.

One think I didn’t LOVE here was that it felt VERY clear that the author was making their debut into adult fiction- there is no mistaking that there are adult themes at play, to an extent that they felt overused.

This book was an emotional, funny, and hopeful anthology of a family’s love. It left me feeling deeply connected to the characters and to their history

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jmeighan's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny informative inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

Acevedo tells a powerful story about family and female relationships. The female characters are the focus in this story. They are powerful and conflicted; strong and struggling; supportive and fiercely loyal. Acevedo explores what is said and unsaid between family members and offers her characters opportunities to heal the wounds of the past.

I listened to the audio version of this novel which is primary narrated by the author. Acevedo brings a performance that adds another layer of emotion with her vocal storytelling. I highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance readers edition of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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gabbylikestoread's review against another edition

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4.0

In Family Lore, we meet the women of the Marte family as they grapple with love, secrets and what it means to give someone their flowers while they can enjoy them.

I’ve loved Elizabeth Acevedo’s work since I started reading again a few years ago. The Poet X is one of my all time favorite books! She has a phenomenal ability of creating characters that you feel like you know personally.

With Family Lore, she does the same thing but with a twist. It’s her first adult novel and hosts multiple points-of-view that spans decades. An epic, in every sense of the word.

I enjoyed learning about these sisters, Flor, Matilde, Pastora and Camila, as well as their daughters, Ona and Yadi. Each woman has a story that could’ve been a book of her own! It’s a wonder that she was able to convey from each POV without the story feeling drawn out or too long.

Since Ona is an anthropologist, we learn about her family history as well as the history of the Dominican Republic. The traditions that shaped the sisters and affected how they raised and nurtured the next generation. Speaking of, I loved seeing how the relationships between the women played out: mothers & daughters, aunts & nieces, sister & sister. For example, Flor & Pastora have a special relationship that began when they were young and continued throughout adulthood and the same can be said of Matilde and Camila. They are all sisters but they way they interacted with each other differed due to the circumstances of how they grew up.

The one thing that prevented this book from being a 5 star is definitely the sexual components. I listened to the book via audio, which is the BEST way to read Acevedo’s work because she narrates, and it was hard to avoid those parts in that format. I annotated as I went to flag where I should skip over those parts during a reread.

I did really enjoy this book! She took big risks and executed it very well.

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cassielaj's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

Family Lore is a work of art. It is lyrical, magical, quiet and exuberant, full of love and hope and fear and all sorts of challenging emotions woven into a truly beautiful story.
The four Marte sisters and their two daughters have such distinct stories and voices that each chapter feels like a story of its own, yet they are interconnected so beautifully to create a complex and wonderful narrative of mothers and daughters, sisters and aunts and nieces, and the ways women love and care for one another across distance, time, and other, more internal barriers. Their magic, both individual and collective, fills this story in more ways than one. I know I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time and going back to reference the many quotes I highlighted when I just need to read something incredible.

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introvertsbookclub's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

4.0

This novel is so full and rich. From class privilege and the vulnerability of women in the face of male violence, to poverty induced gang warfare and the necessity of prison reform, this novel traversed decades, countries and lifetimes of experiences. Exploring what is gained and what is lost across generations and cultures, this story felt like an epic, complete with journeys and trials and emotional arcs.

I loved the way the story explored and celebrated the lives of two generations of women within the same family, both their individual stories and the relationships between the mothers, daughters, sisters and cousins. The narratives spent so much time focusing on traditionally female concerns, from periods, fertility and raising children to cooking and keeping house, and in doing so uncovered the intimate details of the women’s lives and their daily internal monologues. It was exciting too that they were no less interested in their desires and ambitions as they got older. The way that the novel cemented the importance of these ordinary women (with the exception of their magic) and the importance of telling their stories made this a novel I want to pass on to friends and relatives of all ages.

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conspystery's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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

Thanks so much to Netgalley, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Ecco for allowing me to honestly review this book in exchange for an ARC!

Family Lore is sprawlingly, interconnectedly vibrant. The characters’ relationships with one another draw them together as a family, but it isn’t that simple-- we get to see how they interweave with each other in every way possible, examining the full scale of their lives to dive into the complexity between them. The many vignettes of the characters’ childhoods and adolescents always felt fresh, like we as the audience were being offered new insight into why the present-day characters act as they do. The heavy topics addressed were done so with authenticity and grace; the magical realism, while at times a bit contrived, mostly added tension exactly where it needed to go to emphasize the heavier elements of the plot.

I found Flor to be the most compelling character, which makes sense-- she’s the animating issue for the plot. I liked her amount of provenance over the story. Her impending doom never felt overbearing, rather like an inevitable conclusion, and served as the perfect vector to contextualize all the vignettes; in the face of the upcoming death of a loved one, of course everyone would be inclined to reminisce. Every time Flor showed up in a section of the story that wasn’t hers, she served as both a familiar waystation and also a reminder of the tension building as the book went on. Ona’s project of recording all the stories feels like the natural progression of that idea, and I think it was executed really well. I also particularly enjoyed Yadi’s sections and Matilde’s sections. Pastora’s were great, too. I didn’t completely connect with Ona’s sections, but I felt that they held the narrative together in a reasonable manner.

I did struggle with a few parts of the book. I didn’t enjoy the graphic sexual content; I also felt that at times, the pacing dragged, but since this book is so character-driven, that kind of comes with the territory. Some of the dialogue, especially in the interviews, felt stilted, but that might’ve been a direct commentary on the fact that the interviews were translated-- the authenticity of the original language wouldn’t necessarily hold up in English, or with Ona translating? In that same vein, the density of content kind of dragged the pace down a bit, not always in a way that felt like richness; just a little more condensing could’ve made the pacing run a bit more smoothly, I think. Also, certain parts of the plot sprawl felt a little bit indistinct. Specifically, some of the struggles with lovers started to feel a tiny bit repetitive, but maybe that’s intentional, to see how differently the members of the main cast respond in those situations?

Ultimately, I enjoyed Family Lore, despite those minor issues. It was poignant in the way that celebrations of life are, wistfully bittersweet. The writing was evocative and gave authentic voice to the struggles and heavy subject matter with which the book deals; the characters were multifaceted and genuine, and the plot’s calls for magical realism accented them with just the right amount of detail. I liked it.

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