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nerdinthelibrary 's review for:
Clap When You Land
by Elizabeth Acevedo
content warnings: stalking, sexual assault, premature birth, death of a parent, plane crashes, violence, mentions of police brutality and homophobic hate crimes
representation: Dominican main and side characters, lesbian Dominican main character, Haitian main and side characters, Black sapphic main character, Black main and side characters, main f/f relationship
Is Elizabeth Acevedo the greatest writer alive? Discuss. (spoilers: she is)
This is her third book but only the second I've read from her, and I'll be honest I was a little worried going in. Not because I thought it would be bad but because this is her first book told from dual perspectives and that's very hit or miss for me. But as evidenced by my five-star rating, that clearly wasn't an issue and this has jumped onto my favourites of the year list.
Clap When You Land follows two different teenage girls: Camino who lives in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira who lives in New York City. Camino's father is finally coming back to visit her and her Tía, and Yahaira's father is going on his annual business trip to the Dominican Republic. But his plane crashes and there's no survivors. The book is told from both their perspectives as they separately deal with the death of their beloved father, unaware that their sister exists.
As I said, dual perspectives are tricky and can very easily go wrong. But Acevedo, being the genius she is, has expertly written this so that without any big changes both girls' voices are very distinctive, something which is especially important as the book goes on and the headers telling you which character is which disappear.
It's not just the general writing style that easily differentiates the girls, though. The worlds that surround these characters are so incredibly distinct even in their similarities that it's impossible to mistake Camino's world for Yahaira's, and vice versa. Not to mention the people Acevedo has created to populate the world the sisters live in, all feeling as though they existed before the events of the book and will continue to go on existing.
While this is a book primarily focused on grief, there is still time given to focus on the other challenges in the sisters' lives. A lot of Camino's story is about her best friend, Carline, who is pregnant, and the predatory El Cero who no longer has her father's money as incentive for him to stay away from her. Yahaira's story is more about her father's death, but specifically secrets she knew about her father and her complicated relationship with her mother. Even if all these things are not at the forefront of the narrative they never feel less important.
Like The Poet X, this book destroyed me entirely. Personally I prefer The Poet X to this, but this is in no way an inferior book. If you haven't read an Elizabeth Acevedo book then you're seriously missing out.
representation: Dominican main and side characters, lesbian Dominican main character, Haitian main and side characters, Black sapphic main character, Black main and side characters, main f/f relationship
“Is this what sisterhood is?
A negotiation of the things you make possible
out of impossible requests?”
Is Elizabeth Acevedo the greatest writer alive? Discuss. (spoilers: she is)
This is her third book but only the second I've read from her, and I'll be honest I was a little worried going in. Not because I thought it would be bad but because this is her first book told from dual perspectives and that's very hit or miss for me. But as evidenced by my five-star rating, that clearly wasn't an issue and this has jumped onto my favourites of the year list.
Clap When You Land follows two different teenage girls: Camino who lives in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira who lives in New York City. Camino's father is finally coming back to visit her and her Tía, and Yahaira's father is going on his annual business trip to the Dominican Republic. But his plane crashes and there's no survivors. The book is told from both their perspectives as they separately deal with the death of their beloved father, unaware that their sister exists.
As I said, dual perspectives are tricky and can very easily go wrong. But Acevedo, being the genius she is, has expertly written this so that without any big changes both girls' voices are very distinctive, something which is especially important as the book goes on and the headers telling you which character is which disappear.
It's not just the general writing style that easily differentiates the girls, though. The worlds that surround these characters are so incredibly distinct even in their similarities that it's impossible to mistake Camino's world for Yahaira's, and vice versa. Not to mention the people Acevedo has created to populate the world the sisters live in, all feeling as though they existed before the events of the book and will continue to go on existing.
While this is a book primarily focused on grief, there is still time given to focus on the other challenges in the sisters' lives. A lot of Camino's story is about her best friend, Carline, who is pregnant, and the predatory El Cero who no longer has her father's money as incentive for him to stay away from her. Yahaira's story is more about her father's death, but specifically secrets she knew about her father and her complicated relationship with her mother. Even if all these things are not at the forefront of the narrative they never feel less important.
Like The Poet X, this book destroyed me entirely. Personally I prefer The Poet X to this, but this is in no way an inferior book. If you haven't read an Elizabeth Acevedo book then you're seriously missing out.