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A review by gabbylikestoread
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Cursing and Violence