Clap When You Land

Elizabeth Acevedo is one of my absolute favorite authors as her writing is always so beautiful and powerful with powerful storytelling and strong, diverse female characters. (PLEASE go buy all her books if you haven’t read them yet, you won’t regret it!) and I was SO excited to see she’d come out with a new book!!! Per usual I was not let down. This one is a deceptively fast read – at 417 pages I expected it to be longer but the way the pages are laid out make this one fly. Camino and Yahaira share a father – they just don’t know it. Camino lives with her aunt in the Dominican Republic, where they lead a simple lifestyle. Her mother died when she was young. She wants to be a doctor and dreams of moving to New York and studying at Columbia. Meanwhile, her half sister Yahaira lives in New York with her mother. When their father dies in a plane crash secrets start to unravel and the girls eventually learn about each other. It’s heartbreaking but also heartwarming and I loved the diversity across the characters – both girls are Dominican, Yahaira is a lesbian and her girlfriend is black, Camino’s best friend is Haitian. It was the perfect quarantine read in that it’s light and fun enough to hold your attention but also very moving. I loved this one.