Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Hi, my name is Rya. I am a sophomore and I enjoy reading, swimming and traveling.
Two countries.
Two lives.
Two secrets.
Two daughters.
One father.
One ocean.
One plane.
One crash.
Yahaira and Camino, sisters that share the same father, have lived their entire lives without knowing about each other, and their lives couldn’t be more different. Yahaira is a New Yorker, chess champion and witty fashionista, always up-to-date on the best makeup looks. Camino lives a more privileged life than most in the Dominican Republic. She attends a private school and spends her days swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and helping her aunt with her healing duties.
Yahaira and Camino’s father splits his time between his two homes, his two wives, and his two daughters, who are made to believe that his absence from them for several months is for his job. On one of their father’s trips between the countries, the plane that he is aboard drops right into the ocean, killing him. Soon after, Yahaira and Camino begin to discover all of their hidden family secrets.
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo is an authentic novel about cultural diversity, what it means to be family, the impacts of losing a loved one, and the search for bravery when fear is omnipresent. The novel is written in prose, with simple sentence structure and a poetic flow that enhances the story. I really enjoyed this book, whose words were clearly pulled straight from the author’s heart.
