Review: Family Lore (by Elizabeth Acevedo)

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.

Review: The Poet X (by Elizabeth Acevedo)

My Rating: 5 stars

**After watching (and hearing) Elizabeth Acevedo perform a segment from her book during an author chat after I read the book, I was absolutely blown away!  That performance gave me a new appreciation for this story and so I am changing my rating to 5 stars (from 4.5).**

I’ve never been much of a poetry reader.  Nothing against the form or anything, I just have a difficult time getting into poetry, for some reason. Perhaps it’s because my brain processes poetry and poetic verses differently than it does regular prose and as a result, I often have to exert much more effort in reading/re-reading (usually multiple times) poetry in order to fully grasp its meanings. The experience overall can be exhausting and draining for me, which is why, when it comes to leisure reading, I tend to avoid poetry.  This is also why, despite being an avid reader for most of my life and having read countless books over the decades, I had never read a novel-in-verse before, as I’ve always considered it a form of poetry and would likely struggle with it.  Given the above, I was understandably apprehensive when I found out that the group read for one of my book clubs this month would be renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel-in-verse from 2018, The Poet X.   Even though I had heard so many wonderful things about Acevedo and her works, I didn’t know how I would take to a reading experience that, up to this point, was largely foreign to me. (As if that weren’t enough, this book also falls into the YA category, which I don’t read much nowadays, since I’m not the audience for it).   With all that said, I’m actually more surprised than anyone that I ended up enjoying this one so much more than I expected.

Xiomara Batista is the titular Poet X, a teenager who immigrated with her family from the Dominican Republic and now lives in Harlem with her parents and twin brother Xavier.  As she leaves adolescence and starts to come into her own, Xiomara struggles with trying to make sense of the world and her role in it.  In doing so, Xiomara encounters one obstacle after another – at school, she struggles with fitting in, which became more challenging after her body “started taking up more room than [her] voice” and consequently being the target of either affection from boys or jealous gossip from girls.  At home, Xiomara has a strained relationship with her parents – her father ignores her and her mother, who is fiercely religious, sees Xiomara as nothing but trouble and so enforces strict adherence to the laws of her church as a means of keeping her daughter from straying.  At the same time, Xiomara is also dealing with issues of the heart, as she starts to develop feelings for a boy in her biology class and becomes confused at the conflicting emotions raging with her.  Xiomara has a lot she wants to say, but feeling unheard, she has no choice but to pour all her frustrations into the pages of her notebook, in the form of poems that become a salve for her soul.  Through these poems, Xiomara is able to articulate every thought, feeling, desire, that she does not dare express out loud to a world that refuses to listen.  When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, Xiomara is deeply conflicted, as she doesn’t know how she could ever speak the words from her notebook out loud, plus her mother would never let her attend anyway. With some encouragement along the way, Xiomara finally takes a step toward performing her poems, but the implications are severe, especially the visceral reaction from her mother, which threatens to destroy everything, including the little bit of self-worth she had worked so hard to gain.

Xiomara is one of those wonderfully drawn characters who, once you meet her, is very hard for you to forget her.  This is especially true when you have such a talented author as Elizabeth Acevedo at the helm, with her lyrical, poetic words beautifully giving voice to Xiomara, but in a way that is completely accessible, which I love.  For my first time reading a novel-in-verse, I’m so glad I got to start with Acevedo’s work!  Instead of struggling with this as I usually would if I were reading traditional poetry, I actually flew through this and finished in one sitting – though I did feel a bit sad afterwards because I was so immersed in the story and didn’t want it to end.

Overall, this was a different experience for me, but an absolutely incredible one. If, like me, you are looking to try a novel-in-verse for the first time, I highly recommend this immensely moving, heartfelt coming of age tale that is beautifully told in a powerful and unforgettable voice.  Acevedo’s talent definitely shines through and now I can’t wait to read her two subsequent works (also novels-in-verse), With the Fire on High (which came out in 2019) and her newest release Clap When You Land (which came out in May of this year) as well as whatever she decides to write next of course!