A unique magic realist read. Interesting characterisation, family dynamic and concept of a living wake. I've not read anything else like this before.

Adored this book, but sadly it felt lacking. I think if there’s a saga with this many characters then to do their stories a proper, satisfying, justice, it needs to be longer. However, if the goal was to get me to continually think about it after the fact, then it’s achieved exactly what it set out to do!

A sprawling exploration of the Marte sisters’ stories - this book is full of beautiful, lyrical writing and it had me engrossed. It’s a stunning view of both a sisterhood but also the individual women’s own hope and dreams. Recommended for lovers of family sagas, Caribbean representation and women’s fiction.

I’ve read a couple of young adult novels by Elizabeth Acevedo which I’ve liked so was excited to see her first adult novel. I think she was able to translate well into a more mature story. I loved the relationship between all the women and thought all their voices were captured really well.
Really beautiful and heart wrenching. Would recommend.

This was everything that I have come to expect from Acevedo: beautiful writing with characters that burrow into your soul and make you hurt for them. I can't wait to see more of her adult work, or anything by her really.

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo is the story of four Dominican sisters and two of their daughters. One sister foresees death in her dreams, another’s inner radar detects dishonesty, a third makes healing concoctions, and the fourth, lacking magical powers, channels the world’s pulse through dancing. The mixture of magical realism and literary fiction made it very unique and enjoyable. Elizabeth is a brilliant writer and she knows how to carry the reader through a story. It's very emotional and the writing is very lyrical and poetic. This has honestly left me speechless and can't wait for her next work.

The Marte women are preparing for a gathering that will change their lives forever

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides to host her own living wake – bringing together her family and community to celebrate her long life – her sisters Matilde, Pastora and Camila are concerned. What has she foreseen?

But Flor isn’t the only one with a secret. Matilde has tried to hide the extent of her husband’s infidelity for years, and now must confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora – always on a mission to solve her sisters’ problems – needs to come to terms with her past. And Camila, the youngest sibling, has decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted. Alongside their struggles, the next generation of Marte women face their own tumult of family obligations, infertility, and heartache.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the intertwining stories of these sisters and cousins, mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces, to ask the ultimate question: what does it take to live a good life, for yourself and those you love?

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevado is a novel about the Martes Women, a Dominican American family where the women are imbued with extraordinary gifts. The novel is structured around the living wake of Flor, who can foresee the death of anyone she touches. Her daughter Ona, who conducts interviews with the other family members, narrates the novel. Through these interviews, we get to know the life stories of Flor and her three sisters, and their two daughters, each with their own unique gifts.
I am a big fan of Acevado’s YA novels, especially With the Fire on High, which I thought was a brilliant depiction of teenage motherhood. I was eager to read her first adult novel, but I was felt a little disappointed by it. The novel had too many characters and too many subplots, which made it hard to follow and connect with. Some of the gifts were also too bizarre for my taste, such as Ona’s “magical alpha vagina” that can make any man fall in love with her. I wish the novel had less protagonists so that you could get to really connect with the Martes women. Some parts were wonderful – I loved the Dominican culture references, the food (again a nod to With the Fire on High) but the book just tried to pack too much in for me.

I received the Digital ARC of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love Elizabeth Acevedo prose, as it’s still very lyrical and her story telling is on point every single time. This book about family and their dynamics packed with DR complexities makes this book quite unique. There’s an interesting touch on magic realism which doesn’t always work for me, but here it really makes a lot of sense.

As we get to know the family, one by one, you understand their behaviour and their own traumas inner fights, I saw parts of my family reflected here and Im not from the Dominican Republic. I think a lot of us latinos would see ourselves in the book. Having said that I could see some of my friend’s family and are not even Latinos.

Absolutely recommend this one to anybody who likes reading magic realism and family dramas.

Family Lore is the latest from author and poet Elizabeth Acevedo. She’s probably best known for her YA books and in particular, I really enjoyed ‘With The Fire On High’ and ‘Clap When You Land’, so I eagerly requested this from NetGalley last year.

I am still catching up on reviews so apologies for the delay on this one! This is the author’s first novel for adults and unfortunately it just didn’t quite work for me, as much as I wanted it to.

Our story is told from the perspective of six women from the same Dominican-American family, starting with Flor who can predict the date of anyone’s death. Her family are instantly worried then when she organises her own “living wake”. Mostly she’s hoping to bring her family and community back together with this event but they of course fear she’s about to reveal either her own death date or someone else’s. The living wake is a few days away so in the meantime the author takes us through the lives of the aunties, nieces, cousins, and sisters in the Marte clan with plenty of looking backwards in time and returning to the present to add to these back stories.

Oh and they all possess magic “gifts”, some of which are notably more useful than others. I admit I did eye roll at the character whose gift is “controlling her vagina”. Ok, gal, good for you.

Too many characters and too much jumping around in the timeline, for me. I normally love a big family drama like this (and I particularly love when it’s a multigenerational saga infused with magic) but the pacing felt a bit off and I just never found myself really getting into it. There’s definitely enjoyable moments in here but they get a bit overshadowed unfortunately.

If you’re a fan of Acevedo you’ll undoubtedly want to read this anyway but for me at least it (ironically) lacked the magic of her YA books.

With many thanks to @netgalley and @canongatebooks for the opportunity to read #FamilyLore in exchange for an honest review. Al opinions my own, as always

I've puzzled over what to write here for months now. Truth is, I can't believe I didn't like it. I've loved everything Acevedo has written up until this point and I was so excited for her adult debut. But it took me forever to get past the first few chapters and then forever (and, I confess, some skim-reading) just to finish it. I never got into it. The characters didn't grab me; the story didn't pull me in. It lacked a hook, a spark, to make me interested enough to wonder what the next page would hold.

I loved this book. Just enough magical realism and humour from the anthropology to make it an interesting and unusual read.

as a fan of family sagas i was pretty excited for this but ended up finding the story's execution to be a bit dry and the characters one-note.

I didn't really enjoy this book and I think it just wasn't for me. But i am grateful for this ARC being given to me!

I enjoyed reading FAMILY LORE by Elizabeth Acevedo. It was an easy read, but I'm afraid it also didn't leave a very deep impression. I could feel Acevedo coming from writing YA and that probably tripped me up a bit. The premise, the characters and the way the narrative was structured all intrigued me, but in the end it didn't come together quite as fluently as I'd hoped.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing a review copy.

In "Family Lore," the narrative shifts across family members, primarily sparked by Flor's unexpected decision to have a living wake. As each chapter focuses on a different character, the family's intricate dynamics and hidden secrets unfold. Themes include infidelity, unappreciation, and personal struggles, forming a brief but epic saga of their lives in New York City. The storytelling, reminiscent of a poet's style, is experimental and flowery, yet the disjointed narratives, while artistically appealing, might hinder a deeper connection with individual characters and the overarching plot.

I love Elizabeth Acevedo and her books are great to listen to on audio. I had very high expectations of her first adult book, but I just couldnt get into it. The premise and characters are very interesting, but I wasnt hooked. I will listen to it on audio, maybe that is just the best way to consume her books.

Family Lore focuses on the Marie sisters: Matilda, Flor, Pastor and Camille, and two of their daughters, Ona and Yadi. Some of these women have special abilities, and for Flor, that is being able to predict when someone is going to die. So there is great consternation when she decides to hold a living wake.

Ona is an anthropologist and decides to interview the women in her family to find out about their origins: the older sisters come from the Dominican Republic, and their lives there were very different to those of their children.

This is a family with a lot going on! If you like family dramas, then you would be just the reader for this book. There’s a lot about the different relationships between the characters, marriages, unfaithfulness, low self esteem, maternal love, fertility problems, cultural differences, family arguments and resilience.

It’s beautifully written - Acevedo is a poet as well - and all the characters really do have their own voices in this wide-sweeping novel.

I hadn't read anything by debut author Acevedo before - but will be looking out for her works in future.

This book is described as, "the story of one Dominican-American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives" and it started ticking my boxes from that very description.

This puts me in mind of Isabella Allende's magical realism - a really high recommendation.

From the first, ‘Family Lore’ is genuinely gripping. This is the type of absorbing read that I love: when the voice of the p-o-v character is so enthralling that I just want to read and read and never to come to the end. And in ‘Family Lore’, Elizabeth Acevedo crafts six such voices for the women of one Dominican-American family. This is (I’m sorry to say) the first novel that I’ve read set (partly) in the Dominican Republic, but I intend to remedy that now.

There's something so penetrating, so full-bodied, that I could feel the very pulse of each character, every time. The clarity of characterisation is remarkable.

Familiar, as a librarian, with Acevedo’s name from YA and Teen Fiction, I’m overjoyed to have found her first novel for adults as engrossing as I have.

This is a novel that pulls its weight and works hard for you if you work hard for it. Don’t expect any molly-coddling where language, customs, and cultural references are concerned. And I love that; authorial self-possession is what thrills me in a novel, and Acevedo here is assured, inimitable.

My thanks to Canongate and the author.