Family Lore
A Novel
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK!
Winner of the NAACP Image Award, Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction
Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
From National Book Award-winning author Elizabeth Acevedo comes the story of one Dominican American family told through the voices of its women
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 foreseen 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: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own.
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.
A Best Book of 2023 from: Washington Post * Good Housekeeping * Real Simple * Harper's Bazaar * Elle * Time * NPR
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A family gathering promises to expose a few secrets in this tender intergenerational tale full of strong women and magic. Flor Marte, the second of four Dominican American sisters, has planned a wake for herself—even though she’s very much alive. This puts her sisters on edge, especially because Flor has the power to see the day that someone will die, leaving her family curious about the upcoming event, to say the least. The narrative that follows moves back and forth in time and place, from the sisters’ adulthood in New York to their childhood in Santo Domingo. We loved learning about the magic that makes up each woman’s life. In the three days that lead up to the wake, we also get to meet a collection of endearing and quirky aunts, mothers, and cousins, who are all bound by the same love and loyalty. The triumphs and disappointments of family ties ring true in this engaging read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The colorful adult debut from Acevedo (The Poet X) explores the bonds connecting the women of a Dominican family in New York City, some of whom have magical powers. Flor Marte, the clairvoyant second-born sister, whose dreams tell her when others are about to die, begins planning her own wake, while her older sister, Matilde, a brilliant dancer unhappily married to the unfaithful Rafa, nurses an attraction to her instructor's son. Their widowed younger sister, Pastora, knows about Rafa's infidelity and Matilde's crush on a younger man because she has a magical ability to perceive people's secrets; her interference in Matilde's life has dire consequences. Flor's daughter, Ona, who narrates, claims she can regulate her menstrual cycle ("your popola has magic?" asks her aunt Camila, the youngest of the four). There's also Pastora's daughter, Yadi, whose old beau has just been released from prison while she prepares the food for Flor's wake. Though the various magical elements aren't very well developed, Acevedo is brilliant at portraying the women's love and loyalty for one another. The author's fans will eat this up.
