A review by znvisser
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I love multiple POV family sagas, but four sisters and two of their daughters is too many similar characters to be introduced to in such a short story; I kept forgetting what happened to whom or whose daughter they were, so I spent the first half of each chapter trying to remember which woman, partner and/or story it was about. 

As my Spanish is very limited (and most of my interpretations were more a result of more elaborate French and Italian knowledge), I fear lots of it went over my head. Although I understand it is more authentic if bilingual people think and speak in a mix of their languages, I understood most of these conversations as fully Spanish anyway, so I don’t understand the need for codeswitching in text. And Ona’s quotes interrupting the story and just rerouting it elsewhere was confusing too, because it was yet another (third!) cause for me to lose track of what was going on. Because of all these storylines I felt there were many loose ends too. I wasn’t uninterested in these women but reading about them in this way was a struggle, and additionally, there was a surprising amount of sex and horniness for a family story (in part due to Ona’s magical “wet wet” ?🫠). 

There were some details in the writing that I really liked but as a reading experience this was weird and confusing. 
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