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A review by just_one_more_paige
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

emotional 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? No

3.0

 
I have read a few of Acevedo's YA novels (in verse and prose), The Poet X and With the Fire on High. And they were both phenomenal. And so, I was really excited to pick this, her first adult novel, up. 
 
Here's the blurb from Goodreads: "Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake--a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she's led--her sisters are surprised. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else's? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila. But Flor isn't the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband's infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor's wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling's problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she's decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own: Yadi is reuniting with her first love, who was imprisoned when they were both still kids; Ona is married for years and attempting to conceive. Ona must decide whether it's worth it to keep trying--to have a child, and the anthropology research that's begun to feel lackluster." 
 
There were a lot of narrative voices in this novel. We heard from Flor, and all her sisters, as well as her daughter Ona and niece Yadi. And normally I appreciate this style of storytelling, but in this case, I found it to be rather confusing. There was a lot of jumping around both in whose perspective we were in and what time period (look back/past or present-day). Plus, there were some snippets that were "interview" style, as Ona was working on her anthropological research and was conducting recorded conversations with her family members. And, in the time honored tradition of families everywhere (especially female family members and, not from personal experience but definitely what I've gleaned from literature, Latin(a) family members), there is quite a bit of talking about each other. All that to say, I really did struggle to follow who was who. and who was narrating. and what was happening to who, and when it was happening to them. I did eventually settle, mostly, into the narrations and characters connections, but this is definitely not a novel one can passively read (or listen to, in my case...of note here, the audiobook narrators were fantastic). 
 
One aspect I was really impressed by, and that should come as no surprise considering Acevedo's reputation, was the absolutely gorgeous writing. You can tell her background in poetry from the deftness of the wordplay and flow and the rhythm in the writing. So smooth, so good. I also am always here for a classic Spanish/Latin literature vibe of intergenerational family with abilities that border on magic (magical realism). In the vein of Like Water for Chocolate and anything from Garcia Marquez, this hits. But there was also an irreverence to it here that I loved. The thematic threads of this book were anchored in a unique and open and creative examination of female bodies/pleasure (mostly self), including menopause and fertility and breastfeeding and masturbation and many other aspects that everyone is afraid to talk about, and therefore never see enough light/normalization. It’s a beautiful conversation about something that should always be considered that beautiful, but instead is labeled vulgar and loose. That spoke to my soul and was an absolute highlight of the reading experience for me.  
   
On the whole though...I don't know. This novel had all the elements. I simply loved some trajectories - Yadi and Matilde in particular - and in general the way they all moved and wove together as a family, as women, and the overall message of how women support each other, but don’t always talk about the things that would actually be helpful. And yet, something was missing in the novel as a whole, some piece that would have made it great. Maybe the pacing (it felt a bit slow, surprising considering the number of characters we were following) or maybe how hard I had to work to piece everything together or maybe that the ending(s) felt a bit anticlimactic for me? But in the end, while this was a very solid overall read, it was not as special as I'd hoped. I definitely think she shines more in her YA work. 
 
 
“Some things take time to cure. Candles aren’t candles until they’ve hardened in the dark and can be turned on without the wax melting before the flame can consume it. Soap isn’t soap until the lye and lather binds. Rum takes weeks of adding honey and bay leaf and wine before it can be called or served as mama-juana. Cannabis even needs darkness, to shed itself of moisture, before becoming something that will burn, heal. You’re in a curing season.” 
 
“How do you learn to live with what will not be? How do you console yourself with the life that you have when the humans you love most are hopeful for more than you?” 
 
“I like to think there was a time, before our mothers, and theirs, and theirs and theirs, some great-great who knew her own pleasure. A time before we were wrapped in corsets, and courtships, and the approximation of proper. I like to think we were nations of women who undulated to a music all our own.” 
 
“We learned in the shadows, when boys who should not, did. When girls we loved loved us back, right? We learned in the big beds of other people’s parents, didn’t we? On a rare occasion, we might have even learned in the sunlight. We might have learned in the quiet. We learned as we listened to the still, to the loudness of our hearts. But not from our mothers.” 
 
“It amazes me how few questions I know to ask, or whom to ask them of, until it’s already too late for the answers to be useful. How do lineages of women from colonized places, where emphasis is put on silent enduring, learn when and where to confide in their own family if forbearance is the only attitude elevated and modeled?” 
 
“And I know the heart is a burial ground for memories that shame and hurt. You can visit and place flowers there and make it a tomb. Or let those things act as fertilizer and pay no homage.” 
 
“…all of us are magic wrapped in skin.” 
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