The Curse of the Flores Women - Angélica Lopes - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Angélica Lopes

TRANSLATOR: Zoë Perry

NARRATOR: Dominique Franceschi

GENRE: Drama

PUBLICATION DATE: July 1, 2024

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: An English translation of a Portuguese novel, focussing on a group of lace makers who lives are connected to the Flores curse. Interesting plot, powerful themes, complicated characters. Recommended to literary fiction readers. Check the triggers though.

Plot Preview:

2010. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Eighteen-year-old Alice is a rebel, fighting the patriarchal society and the female oppression in Brazil. When a relative passes a family heirloom – a lace veil – over to her, she discovers some secrets sewn into it. The secrets come from seven generations ago, in 1918, when a group of women discovered lace-making, and used it to change their lives. They would gather at the Flores house and work, even though the Flores women were shunned by many townspeople for being cursed to be “always unlucky in love.” As Alice learns more about the past, she discovers the strength and the struggles of the women who came before her.

The story comes to us in two timelines, with Alice’s contemporary timeline in her third person perspective, and the historical timeline in the first person pov of Inês, one of the Flores women.

This novel was first published in Portuguese in 2019 as ‘A Maldição das Flores’. This English translation is due to be published on 1st July 2024.

I am not commenting on the translation quality because I have no idea whether the original Portuguese work was converted to English effectively. I didn’t feel like I was reading a translation; that’s a positive, I guess.

Bookish Yays:

😍 The characters in the historical timeline, whether functioning as friends, siblings, employees, parents, daughters, or husbands, are varied and interesting. Not all of them are likeable, which adds to the depth of the story. I especially liked Vitorina, Inês, and little Cândida.

😍 Because of the curse’s supposedly lasting seven generations, we get to see plenty of characters and their stories. Thankfully, not every single generation’s travails are detailed out. Though a test of our memory, keeping track is easy, as the author offers enough clues to help us keep everyone straight.

😍 Both timelines have rebellion and women empowerment as a common theme, with light also being shed on the status quo in Brazil wrt gender equality then and now.

😍 The novel often goes meandering into offshoot subplots related to events in the past or connected to minor characters. All of these mini-stories are interesting, but don't initially appear to be related to the core plot, until you finally see their relevance. This appears to be a common feature of South American writing, so if you already know the genre, you can ready yourself accordingly. I was prepared for the roundabout narration, and I really enjoyed the backstories. So, Yay!

😍 This quote: "The people who benefit from privilege can't see what things are really like."

😍 The author's note about her writing choices and the historical accuracies. Much appreciated!

😍 The stunning cover!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

😐 The title isn’t completely accurate as the “curse” is a side plot. The main focus is on Eugênia, but she is a ‘Flores woman” only in the sense that she worked at the Flores house before her marriage. And her story has nothing to do with the titular curse, unless we take it metaphorically. This doesn’t affect the storyline, but if you expect the curse to dominate the plot, you will be disappointed.

😐 I loved the idea of characters involved in lace making, and of using the delicate lace to transfer messages in code, and even of the work’s providing financial independence to women, but I wish there had been more details of the actual lace-making process itself.

😐 There is some blatant foreshadowing, which, while adding well to the shocks and twists, also spoils the reading experience when the event finally occurs on page. One event in particular shouldn’t have been leaked so far in advance.

Bookish Nays:

😕 The book is just 220 pages long (in the Kindle edition; 235 pages in the paperback.) We have three prominent female characters in the historical timeline, one FMC in the contemporary timeline, and seven generations of curse-impact stories. Imagine fitting this all into this length! I rarely ask for books to be longer, but in this case, the novel needed several more pages to fill in the gaps and avoid the hurried feel.

😕 I didn’t get why a first-person voice was used for the historical timeline. There were so many events that Inês wouldn’t have known in such detail about, so seeing her narrate all the happenings so extensively in first person was odd.

😕 The blurb makes the novel appear to be a contemporary story, but the main plot unfolds in the past. The modern-day timeline, though having its little agenda about showing the prevailing male patriarchal thinking in Brazilian society, is primarily a framework to know the historical events. It could still have functioned well if Alice’s character had been well-developed, but her role is quite flat. We know much about what she does, but rarely get to understand the whys of her rebellious nature.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 8 hrs 12 mins, is narrated by Dominique Franceschi. She was outstanding! And as good as Frankie Corzo, yet another amazing South American narrator. I loved how Francheschi kept the personalities of the character in mind while narrating their lines. There’s even a distinct difference between how she voices the two timelines, with Alice’s third person sounding peppier than Ines’s first person. I had access to both the digital and the audio copies, but after hearing Francheschi, I kept my digital copy aside and completed this book on audio as she brought the Spanish setting alive with her pronunciation. (So alive that I got the spelling of almost every character name wrong in my review draft! 😶) If you are an audiobook listener, I would strongly recommend the audio version for this book.

All in all, I feel this novel would have worked even better had it focussed only on the historical events, and extended the character arcs with more depth. Despite this, it is still a powerful story about how women in historical Brazil, despite societal constraints, followed their own acts of rebellion against those suppressing their voices.

Definitely recommended if you are looking for a quick OwnVoices work with some strong feminist themes and set in Brazil.

My thanks to NetGalley, Amazon Crossing for the DRC, and Brilliance Audio for the ALC of “The Curse of the Flores Women”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The digital version of this book is currently available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

Content warning: Domestic assault, sexual assault, death, gender discrimination.