My Rating: 3 stars
I read Elizabeth Acevedo's YA novel-in-verse The Poet X in book club a few years back and absolutely loved it. I loved the book even more after I got the chance to watch an author talk that Acevedo did where she read an excerpt from the book out loud (with her being a poet, this was a wonderful treat that definitely enhanced my experience of the book). Given this admiration for Acevedo's previous work, I was of course excited when I heard she would have a new book out this summer and that it would be her first novel for adults.
Family Lore is a story about a Dominican-American family told from the rotating perspectives of the Marte sisters — Matilde, Flor, Pastora, Camila — and their daughters Ona and Yadi. Written in a non-linear format, the story is centered around the living wake that second eldest sister Flor decides to throw for herself to celebrate the long life that she has lived. While this request may not be particularly unusual, it sets off anxiety and panic within this family because of the special "gift" that Flor possesses: the ability to "see death" — that is, to predict (in some cases, to the exact day) when someone will die (the premonition comes in a dream to her). Whether Flor saw her own death or someone else's, she refuses to say, which has the family speculating as to the motivation behind the wake. Flor's sister Pastora also has a "gift" of her own — the ability to "see truth" whereby she can tell just from the way someone talks and the tone of their voice whether they are lying or not. So the family looks to Pastora to hopefully talk to Flor and get some answers— but instead, Pastora chooses to confront oldest sister Matilde about her unfaithful husband Rafa, whose philandering ways Matilde has tolerated for decades. Meanwhile, their next generation, Yadi and Ona, have their own struggles and issues that they are secretly dealing with. In the three days leading up to the wake, some things happen that lead the various characters to reminisce and reflect about their pasts, with a few "secrets" that undoubtedly spill forth in the process. This is the part where the story jumps back and forth not just between time periods (past and present, though without specific timeframe), but also between settings, with scenes taking place in the Dominican Republic as well as in the United States (specifically in New York).
This was an interesting story that I found to be beautifully written with prose that was both poetic and lyrical. With that said however, the format, unfortunately, didn't quite work for me. First, there were way too many characters, all with their own unique backstories that were told in alternating chapters non-chronologically, which made things hard to follow. As I was reading, I was having a hard time keeping everyone's story straight, which was frustrating (though it helped that Acevedo included a character table at the front of the book, which I had to refer back to more often than not). The other aspect that I felt didn't really work were the snippets of commentary from Ona that were inserted throughout the story. Ona's character, an anthropologist, interviewed various members of her family for a research project she was working on, and excerpts from those interviews were woven into the story — which I didn't mind, except that I felt those most of those snippets and segments didn't contribute much to advancing the plot, and given the non-linear nature of the story, it just made things more confusing (for me at least). Thirdly, the story felt too scattered, with multiple threads that seemed to go in different directions, and while the threads did come together at the end, once I got there, I still felt like I didn't really know what was going on (and it also didn't help that the ending itself felt too abrupt and ambiguous, which made an already complicated structure even more confusing).
Overall, I felt that this story had potential, it's just that it was executed in a way that was more complex than it needed to be. I did find several of the sisters' backstories interesting, especially in seeing how some of the things that happened in their lives shaped who they eventually became — but it felt like too much to explore all at the same time. Perhaps a better approach would've been to focus only on one or two main characters' arcs rather than try to cover everyone's story all at once. As a whole though, I did appreciate what Acevedo was trying to do and indeed, there was much that I did enjoy about the book, but unfortunately, the tedious and frustrating reading experience won out in the end.
Though Acevedo's first foray into adult fiction didn't quite land for me, I continue to be an admirer of her YA works, with The Poet Xremaining an unforgettable favorite. I also continue to look forward to any future works she might come out with, be it YA or adult — though hopefully the next adult one will be a better experience.
Received ARC from Ecco via NetGalley.
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