Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
UK Publication: Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: [★★★★]

This ARC was provided by Canongate (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

My First Elizabeth Acevedo but it won’t be my last.

Synopsis 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.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces–one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.

My Thoughts:  A multi-generational family exploration featuring sisters with magical powers? Consider me invested. I loved the magical realism aspects of this story the sisters magical gifts are subtle and believable with the exception of the Alpha Vagina. Yes you read that right an Alpha Vagina! Honestly I could have happily lived my life without ever hearing of this concept but this book was largely told from the POV of the owner of said Alpha Vagina so I heard rather more than I ever wanted to about this. Without this addition this could have been a 5 star book. Maybe that is me just showing my age…

The narrative unfolds over the course of 4 days and the reader learns all about the magical sisters from their pasts in Santo Domingo to their present lives in American. Every sister is given a voice and through flashbacks and current thoughts we learn all about each and every one. We see the complicated relationships between siblings, between parents and children and between lovers.

The sisters grow up, grow apart and come together again within the 4 day arc and it is fascinating to watch and learn about them. There are hints throughout that the whole story itself is Ona’s anthological research project and that makes perfect sense, collecting the stories of “home” before they are lost forever with the next generations in the new land of America.

Who would like this? I would recommend this to those who enjoy family sagas, who enjoy magical realism and appreciate good story telling.

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