Well, this was a surprising read.

In Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo, the Marte family has known that many of them have special abilities. One can tell when people are lying, one is great at herbalism — and Flor has dreams that tell her when someone is going to die. So when she decides to gather her family for a living wake for herself, her loved ones assume that she is dying. However, Flor refuses to confirm this to anyone, even her own sisters. And Flor isn’t the only one keeping secrets: there is plenty of drama simmering under the surface of the family. So in the days leading up to the wake, we follow the lives of the Marte women through their pasts and their present, between the Dominican Republic and the United States.

So I have loved all of Acevedo’s previous books, so I was thrilled to read her first novel for adults. I did the audiobook, because each previous one has been narrated by the author and were absolutely astonishing. Family Lore, though, has two other narrators, probably to help distinguish between the various characters.

And, unfortunately, this is definitely not my favorite Acevedo book.

Firstly, I had such a hard time keeping track of who is who. There’s a large cast, with at least a half dozen characters who have a first-person POV. Also, the timeline jumps around from past to present for each of these people. I don’t normally have too much trouble with this sort of non-chronological storytelling, but since I was already struggling with who was who, this made for a very difficult reading experience.

(I think the physical book has a cast of characters listed at the front, but the audiobook doesn’t. So those who choose to, or need to, read this book in its audio format, will be at a serious disadvantage, in my opinion.)

Beyond these two issues (characters, timeline), I’m not sure what else to say about this book. Parts of it were incredibly interesting, like the plot line about Matilde and her unfaithful disaster of a husband or Flor’s prophetic dreams. I was very invested in these aspects of the book—but the same doesn’t really hold true for the rest. The other storylines were far less intriguing to me. I think a lot of this has to do with the trouble I had with distinguishing between characters, though.

There are also much more explicit themes in this book than in Acevedo’s previous works. This makes sense, as this is her first book not written for a teenage audience, so it was surprising so much as… weird for me. With some of the sexual content, I could tell what she was going for—an exploration and even celebration of the sexuality of women of color. Valid, great, I love it. But other parts kind of just made me feel uncomfortable, like the scenes that tackle how porn addiction can affect a relationship and a family. And by the end of the book, I was left wondering what the point of these scenes were.

But again, maybe I missed something because I couldn’t keep track of who was who.

In the end, Family Lore was a struggle for me. Acevedo’s writing is, as ever, lyrical and powerful and generally just gorgeous. Her character’s voices are full of personality and life. The emotions are often palpable, and the magical realism elements are cool. However, the non-sequential timeline and probably too-large cast of characters made this storyline rather muddled for me. The ending didn’t leave me entirely satisfied, though I imagine if I were to reread this, it might be more rewarding. (I don’t know if I’m going to do that, though.)

Family Lore will be published on August 1st, 2023!