First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

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, Pastor, 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 vice, 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.

And that’s a wrap! Another work week in the books! Happy Friday everyone! Our work week in the Philippines ended yesterday because today is a national holiday in observance of Immaculate Conception Day. I just learned recently that the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the Philippines. Filipino bishops even requested Pope Pius XII to make the formal declaration, doing so on September 12, 1942. After all, each day is an opportunity to learn something new. Today, I also landed in Japan for another long holiday. This will be my last travel this year. 2023 has been filled with travels and I am grateful for all these opportunities to explore other worlds beyond my comfort zone. With six travels, including four international travels, this year is my most traveled, at least where planes are involved.

Anyway, I hope your year has been as amazing as mine; not entirely amazing but for the most part, amazing. Which reminds me, we are inching ever closer to the inevitable close of 2023. We are just a couple of days from greeting a new year. How has 2023 been for everyone? I hope that this year has been kind and brimming with blessings and good news. If it has been otherwise, I hope that in the remainder of the year, you will experience a reversal of fortunes I hope the last days of the year will be overflowing with good tidings. I also hope you will achieve everything you want to achieve this year. I hope that you get repaid for the hard work you poured in this year. More importantly, I hope everyone will be healthy, in body, mind, and spirit, during the rest of the year and in the coming year.

Speaking of achievements, today I was able to tick off another one of my active reading challenges. Last Wednesday, I finally finished all the books in my 2023 Top 23 Reading List after I completed reading Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Earlier today, during my flight from Manila to Nagoya, I finished Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. With this, I have completed all 20 books in my 2023 Beat the Backlist Challenge; I have long completed the main challenge which I set at 60 backlisted books this year. But while I am a successful backlist reader, I can’t say the same with new books. Earlier this year, I listed ten books as part of my annual Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. So far, of the ten books on the list, I was only able to read three. My current read, Elizabeth Acevedo’s Family Lore is the fourth book from this list.

Historically, I haven’t been successful in completing my Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List although I did come close once, in 2020, when I fell one book short of completing all ten books. Nevertheless, I still kept on listing ten new books I wanted to read. The main reason for this is that I get to be introduced to new-to-me writers. This is the case with Acevedo who I had never heard of until earlier this year when her latest novel, Family Lore was repeatedly mentioned as one of the 2023 releases to look forward to. Apparently, Acevedo has been around. She wrote a couple of young adult fiction novels. Family Lore is her first venture into adult fiction.

I just started reading the novel. The opening pages of the book laid out the landscape of the story. It started with Flor, “six weeks before the funeral.” Flor Marte is the second oldest daughter born to Silvia and Susano, immigrants from the Dominican Republic who settled in the Big Apple. Born in 1953, Flor was no ordinary woman. She was gifted with the ability to predict the exact day a person would die. Interesting. From this alone, one can surmise that the book has magical and fantastical elements; after all, the title had the word “lore”. The book’s art cover also gives off the same vibe. I guess the cover was also one of the factors why I included the book in my Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List.

The crux of the story was when Flor started planning for her own funeral, hence, the book’s first part “Six Weeks Before the Funeral.” This is the story’s main driver. I guess this doesn’t come as a surprise. As I am still finding my footing in the story, I wasn’t able to look too far into the story. Nevertheless, I assume that loss, death, and grief are key elements in the story. The Marte siblings – there are four sisters and an older brother – have already lost their parents. It seems that each sibling is individually unique. I won’t be surprised if their contrasting personalities propelled the story. Elsewhere, I think the novel will also explore the American dream and the Latin American diaspora. The combination of New York and immigration does give it away.

However, there is one angle I am also considering. Is there somehow a link to the storied Mirabal sisters? Three of the four Mirabal sisters are renowned for their resistance to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. They are heroes in their native Dominican Republic. After Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, this is the second novel by an American Dominican writer I read which featured four sisters. I am genuinely curious if these are just coincidences or if they are rooted in something more complex, something deeper. Anyway, I like the book’s lyrical quality. Acevedo’s poetic prowess is coming through.

With the writing very accessible, Family Lore seems like a rather easy read. I just might be abe to finish it over the weekend. How about you fellow reader? What book or books are you taking with you for the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy them. Again, happy weekend everyone!