**4.5 stars**
Just finished reading Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo and I must say that Misses Acevedo is making her way up to being one of my favorite current Young Adult authors. I loved, LOVED the Poet X. If you have the opportunity to listen to it on audio book, I cannot recommend it enough. For Clap When You Land I went instead for the print book than the audio. Which might play into the reason why, even though still really good, I didn't love it as much as I loved the Poet X. Honestly, Elizabeth Acevedo is such a forceful storyteller that I could possibly find myself loving any book as long as she's reading it to me - haha.
Clap When You Land is a dual narrative written in verse. The story features two girls, Camino Rios and Yahaira Rios. Camino lives in the Dominican Republic and Yahaira lives in New York City. They have never met and never spoken, but when their father is killed in a plane crash on his way to the Dominican Republic for his yearly summer visit with Camino, they learn of each other's existence. One of the great things about this book is that it highlights the fact that death and tragedy happen all the time. And even though some tragedies are noticed and deemed newsworthy, people are quick to move on to the next tragedy -- leaving behind those directly affected. The rest of the world goes on as normal, while an individual, a family and sometimes even a whole community are still very much in pain and grieving for their loss. This book is partly dedicated to those who lost their lives on American Airlines flight 587, and tries to represent part of the pain and loss that affected the Dominican Republic community during this tragedy. The book also beautifully covers the bond between women. Despite the feelings of cattiness between Camino, Yahaira and Zoila (Yahaira's mom) -- they pull together to help each other heal, and lift each other up. I also enjoyed the author's description of the Dominican Republic, it sounded equally beautiful and terrifying - much like a strong-willed woman :)
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