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Thanks to @eccobooks for an advance copy of Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo, which has been out now for some time and which I am shamefully just now getting to review! I’m a big fan of Acevedo’s YA novels The Poet X and Clap When You Land, so I was very excited to hear she was coming out with an adult novel. Family Lore is, at its core, a story about women: sisters, mothers, wives, and daughters (if you liked the dynamics of The Joy Luck Club or Homegoing, I think you’ll enjoy this!) Brought together by Flora, who has decided to throw a living wake (and whose connection to death causes everyone to wonder what she isn’t saying), the sisters and their daughters reflect on their lives and relationships and the choices that have brought them from the DR to NYC. While I did find one plot point pulling me out of the narrative (IYKYK), Acevedo is a gifted writer and I found myself highlighting so many turns of phrase and moments where her words had my heart in my throat: “You taught me: all of us are magic wrapped in skin. And taut with over-wrought wonder, for the fleeting time we are beings, we would have to make her up: the woman we require to survive this world.” 📸: I’m holding up a hardback copy of Family Lore in front of a window. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/C6lnLsXrUII/