Books written in verse can be a hit or miss sometimes – after all, there is a fine line between writing a story in verse and just pressing the tab key in the middle of random sentences. Elizabeth Acevedo, author of the brilliant Poet X, however, never fails to astound me with her free verse.
Clap When You Land follows two girls – Camino and Yahaira. Camino lives in the Dominican Republic and Yahaira in New York. At first glance, these two girls don’t have that much in common, but then there is their father, who dies on flight AA587 which crashes on its way to Santa Domingo where he was supposed to visit Camino on his annual summer holiday. 265 lives are lost that day and yet one of those lives, brings two new ones together. Before that plane crash, neither of the girls had any idea about the other one. But when their father is killed, the both of them find out about each other and the grief they feel for the parent they have lost is intricately coupled with the anger and shock that they didn’t know their father, who has lived a double life for nearly two decades, all that well.
Acevedo paints a stunning picture of grief, rage, and broken family bonds with her fantastic prose in this novel. From addressing the darker sides of the struggles that come with an absentee parent and then diving into the impossible dreams of studying abroad when you don’t have the finances to support that dream, this book held a lot of pain and loss and disappointment – but also a lot of strength of facing those impossibilities and demands and make them disappear.
I also loved how it targeted the hero worship we sometimes have for our parents – it seems baffling that they had a life of their own before they became parents and it also showcased how we gloss over facts we don’t want to see because parents are supposed to be infallible. Both Camino and Yahaira have to come to terms with their father’s transgressions and the lies he has told – without ever having the opportunity to confront him about it. Grief is mixed with disappointment and even gratefulness because it brought the two girls together, if nothing else.
The only thing that confused me was that this was narrated from two POVs – both Camino and Yahaira. I honestly didn’t realise until way too late that it wasn’t just Camino talking. I bet if I listened to the audio (Acevedo usually narrates her own audiobooks and has very distinct voices for her characters), I wouldn’t have gotten confused as to who was speaking in the chapter, but reading the physical book, I had trouble following because the voices were very similar.
What I loved most about Clap When You Land is even though it deals with harrowing topics like assault and grief and the media’s short attention span, it also featured a lot of hope. Camino’s aunt is known as a bit of a miracle worker and that hope spread from Camino’s best friend Carline having a beautiful baby boy who isn’t supposed to make it squealing happily at the end of the book to Yahaira’s mother reaching out to Camino to offer her the safe life in the States her father always envisioned for her. Yahaira’s girlfriend Dre is also a beacon of hope as she grows plants in unlikely places and sows seeds of better days to come along with them.
Ultimately, Clap When You Land is filled with powerful, feminist vibes – every woman featured in this novel was fierce in her own way – whether that meant standing up to bullies, working yourself into the ground to make others’ dreams come true or simply loving your child more than anyone ever thought possible. At its core, this is a story about survivors and everything that comes with it – guilt, trauma, fear, and finally, hopefully, acceptance. A beautiful but heartbreaking novel that will make you call up your parents to ask them who they are…and maybe to tell them that you love them.
Clap When You Land is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of May 5th 2020.
Will you be picking up Clap When You Land? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…
In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.
Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.
And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.
