by Elizabeth Acevado
In the book Clap When You Land, the father of two 15 year old girls dies in a plane crash. Camilo is from the Dominican Republic and Yahari is from New York. Both are devastated after hearing the news of the crash. As each family tries to sort things out, the families find that the two girls are sisters. The father had a secret second life with another family. The realization of the truth sparks confusion and fury.
The sisters find each other on the internet and slowly bond as friends. Camilo wants a chance to get her family out of poverty by getting a good education. Yahari goes to meet Camilo to help her get into a college in America. They attend their father’s funeral and fly back to New York together to finish high school.
The author formatted the novel like poetry which was unfamiliar to me, but it was nice to see something different. After more research, I found that many authors formatted their words like her. I enjoyed how the narrative point of view switched between the two sisters because it spread the story out more evenly, developing the characters better. Other books that follow this format are The Girl That Fell From the Sky, and Refugee, both which I really enjoyed.
I liked the plot of the book because the climax was unexpected, motivating me to read more. After the first few pages, I didn’t want to stop reading because every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. For example, in one chapter Yahari found a “very bad piece of paper”, not telling us that those were the papers of her father’s marriage to another woman.
Overall, it was a much better book than I thought it would be. I would recommend this book to mature teens because they may be able to relate to it better than younger children.