Family Lore

read for seasonal roulette readathon: spring 2024read for 24 hour readathon vlog

i appreciated this story so much and all the variety of women's issues that is told. i love elizabeth acevedo's writing but i didn't enjoy the non-linear, constantly switching perspective nature of this book.

This book wasn't bad but it was also clearly not for me. I've read 3 other books by this author and loved all of them, this one was just okay for me.

There are multiple POVs and it was hard for me to keep track of what happened to whom, when and of what actually did matter. The writing is beautiful and compelling however I can't help but feel like it was lacking an actual plot. The whole thing about the woman wanting a baby bored me half to death (it will probably resonate with some people but personally I don't care for that type of story and I found it hard not to skim).

On the plus side I really liked the name Pastoria.

It really pains me to say my absolute favourite YA writer's foray into adult fiction is a miss for me. Although I've previously loved, been thrilled moved by or enamoured with Elizabeth Acevedo's books, this has barely registered as a blip. I couldn't care less about the characters, the recurrent references to sex I found distasteful (don't get me wrong, not the references themselves, but the way they were done). I would say the only saving grace were the family relationships and the - unfortunately - rather infrequent mentions of food - which reminded me of With the fire on high, but they were too few and far between.