Clap When You Land Book Review

Meet Elizabeth Acevedo, A Dominican- American poet who invented the scripture “Clap When You Land”. 

This book tackles family secrets & explores many themes such as betrayal, grief & deceits. Clap When You Land is set in the Dominican Republic & New York City where two sisters are bound together. Camino Rios stays in the Dominican Republic while Yahiara Rios stays in the USA, the sisters’ existence are very unknown to each other until flight AA587 crashed and tragic events occurred. For sixteen years, their father has been living a double life keeping his daughters separated & unaware of each other. As Camino stated “Every year for my birthday he asks me what I want. Since the year my mother died, I’ve always answered to live with you. in the states‘.’ & Yahiara stated “I am so accustomed to his absence that this feels more like delay than death.” It is to be established the father was trying to split his time for his daughters. The absence of the father is yet another intense element, when the girl summons the news, there wasn’t enough time to digest the betrayal and having to adapt into a new life without their father. Now the complexities of their families are out in the light, their father who we referred to as Papi wasn’t the best man, although Papi did love both girls equally & genuinely wanted the best for them, he failed as a husband because he cheated on his wife Zoila who is Yahiara’s mother. However the sisters have a lot of potential to build a relationship which is to be deeply explored. They both have one thing in common and that’s their unconditional love for their father. “”For the rest of my life I will sit & imagine what my father would say in any given moment. & I will make him up: his words, his advice, our memories.” Their father is everything to them. Their hero, their friend, their idol and so many other things you can’t even put into words. When the two girls learn of each other, it is a shocking discovery of a connection that wounds but might ultimately save them both.⁣

 How do you grieve for your father once you discovered that he wasn’t the person you thought him to be? How do you deal with the aftermath of not only his unexpected and sudden death but also with the people he left behind? The people you didn’t even know are part of your family? How do you accept that the person you loved so dearly had a secret life in another country? And how do you forgive him for cheating on your mother if he isn’t even there to take the blame or to be confronted about it? 

”All these lies that we’ve all swallowed, they’re probably rotting in our stomachs.” 

 As a JSK reporter, I myself really enjoyed “Clap When You Land”. I gave this book a good review. I’m very glad Ms. Perez picked it up for us, the story carried on with deep exploration of grief, tender and patience. It was a beautiful story yet emotional. I’m honestly at a loss for how to describe this book without telling you to read it, if you haven’t; the story itself is fairly small and constrained, and it’s centered on relationships, trusting yourself, and navigating family secrets. Elizabeth Acevedo is an amazingly gifted author, and she takes what is a fairly mundane situation and turns it into an engrossing read I’m not sure I’ll ever forget.

As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app. Want to listen? Try Audible. For further information upon this book, you can find it on amazon book clubs. Click the link below for more information. https://www.amazon.com/Clap-When-Land-Elizabeth-Acevedo/dp/0062882767