Clap When You Land

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A space yawns open in the lives of Camino Rios and Yahaira Rios after their father dies in a flight crash, an absence made even more acute by the truths it reveals: Camino and Yahaira are half-sisters who didn't know of each other’s existence. The believable characters develop and mature as the story unfolds in this tale of family and unconditional love.

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. Part of the girls' discovery of each other is also the discovery that maybe their father wasn't quite the man they thought he was. Clap When You land is the story of two sisters, Yahaira and Camino, who do not know about each other until their father dies in a plane crash. This is Cami and Yaya’s story of unbearable grief and contemptuous longing—the novel alternating between their voices—but you are in there too, and that makes their loss your loss, the ache your ache, the anger you anger, and the shape of their father's secrets something you too must process and come to terms with yourself. Just send a semi-regular round up of reviews, things we find interesting, and Shannon’s beauty recommendations.that one day I will not be left behindWe then jump back into Yahaira's POV, and I was happy to realise that another reason why the girls' POVs were easier to distinguish whilst reading the book is the fact that Acevedo switched up her writing style: Yahaira's chapters feel a lot more lighthearted, especially in the beginning. We learn that only through her father's life (and job) in the US were they able to have iron locks on their doors, running water in their home, and a working bathroom . But when Camino is at the airport waiting for her father's bright smile and loud laugh, she didn't expect to see a crowd of crying people.

Anytime a book discusses the grief of losing a parent it really hits me hard because that's a pain I can't even begin to imagine. The audiobook, produced by Harper Audio and narrated by Melania-Luisa Marte and Elizabeth Acevedo, was released on the same date.

Acevedo's poetry at one moment envelops readers through vibrant description, and the next pierces them with all-too-effective phrases.