Friday, January 29, 2021

Clap When You Land Book Review


Fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, including myself, had been anxiously awaiting her junior novel, and second novel in verse, Clap When You Land. Following the May 2020 release, Clap When You Land received high praise including winning the yearly Goodreads 2020 Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction, and the 2020 Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award for Fiction and Poetry.

As a huge fan of Acevedo’s first two novels, The Poet X and With the Fire on High, I had incredibly high hopes, and somehow, Acevedo went beyond my highest expectations for her most recent novel.

Clap When You Land follows half-sisters, Camino Rios in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira (Yaya) Rios in New York, connecting over the recent death of their father, who died in the American Airlines flight 587 crash.

AA587 is not of Acevedo’s invention; it was a flight going from New York to the Dominican Republic in 2001. The accidental crash, taking place only two months and one day after the September 11 attacks appears to have been somewhat ignored or overlooked by the media, but nonetheless brought devastation to the New York-Dominican community. It is the third deadliest aviation accident in US history following the 9/11 attacks (Aviation Safety). There were 260 fatalities and zero survivors in this awful New York City crash, and yet, I had never heard of it before. 68 of the passengers killed were from the Dominican Republic. About 90% of the passengers were of Dominican descent (The Guardian).

Acevedo herself was greatly affected by the flight. “I was 13 years old when that plane crashed. It rocked my community. I mean, everyone knew someone who was on that flight.” (NPR)

Providing this information is not just to give historical background, but to emphasize the real pain associated with the topic of this novel, and the pain Acevedo is working to convey. Although Camino and Yahaira are not real people, I know there is a Camino or a Yahaira or another child who lost a loved one in this crash, and can probably relate to one or both of these characters.

I have to hope that people impacted by this crash find some sort of healing in this book, but I also hope that readers like me who were not impacted by it can find solace in the universality of grief, while also empathizing for those like the sisters even if the reader may not have experienced something similar. I think reading about experiences we may not be able to fully relate to is an important exercise in listening to the situations of others with kindness and openness. No one will ever have the exact same emotions or experiences, but through reading we can learn about the emotions and experiences of others to not only broaden our mind but hopefully practice an ability to listen to and accept others of differing experiences.

I didn’t originally know this was based on a true event. Having Acevedo contextualize it by showing this was a real plane crash with real people brought out more empathy from me than I would have thought. I empathize even with fictional situations, but knowing this book stemmed from real pain and trauma serves as a reminder that this pain happens both in fiction and in real life.

By the way, when I say these sisters are connecting over this death, I mean they had no idea the other sister existed for sixteen years. Both never knew their beloved father had a secret family in a different country 1,534 miles away.

I was worried going into this book there would be some sort of lasting taboo of having a half-sister or of not sharing a parent. I am by definition a half-sister, although I never think in that term. I have learned through growing up, and what is presented by Acevedo as well is, the importance of who loved you and raised you, or who comes to love and accept you, not necessarily who created you. Family isn't always the same parents or the same genes, it's love, and these sisters love one another. Although there was shock between the two characters, they grew and adapted to a new and possibly scary situation. Legally, Camino and Yahaira are half-sisters. But just like my sister and I, they are not half-family, they are family.

Elizabeth Acevedo

Full of grief and love, Acevedo does not caution from showing the pain that the two families are feeling, and yet, these true emotions being evoked, even including pain, seem to create comfort. By showing these two families, it is emphasized that everyone may have different experiences, but grief is universal, although it may feel isolating at times.  

In a book dealing with such heavy topics, I was impressed by is the careful balance of detail and space to imagine when reading the poems. There are no titles for the poems, but I was drawn to the detail on a specific poem from Camino’s perspective.

“I keep rocking next to her. Sometimes words

need time to form; the minutes like slabs

building a ramp out the mouth.” (Acevedo, 192)

I continued to mentally repeat the phrase “minutes like slabs/building a ramp out the mouth”, a line beautifully bringing the physical (ramps) with the more abstract idea of forming words or time passing, to create an image of a ramp being built. For me, I was drawn to the imagery created in such a short phrase, and the impact of these words.  

For those who have read Acevedo’s first novel, The Poet X¸ the prose-like sparsity of the poems is a style readers have seen before. However, the sparsity is not at all a downside to Acevedo’s work, because it brings emphasis to what is being said. Acevedo evokes so much emotion with every word, with space on the page almost like Acevedo, or the reader, taking a breath between these difficult topics.

I also found the lack of titles interesting. Although I do not believe titles make a full work less cohesive, but the lack of titles made it feel like one 400+ page poem to me. Although reminding me of a very long poem, I did not at all feel a drag of 400 pages. Instead, I sped through it and could not put the book down. By only indicating the speaker (Camino, Yahaira, or both) of the poem, I felt as if I were being sat down and told a story by Camino and Yahaira about their journey together. No titles to separate the poems remind me of someone telling their life story, which does not often have a title.

Throughout the novel, the sisters learn that their late father was far more flawed than the two had thought. Acevedo shows girls growing up from idolizing their father to being upset and confused by his choices to forgiving and still loving him. I think the arc the sisters have of learning not to idolize their father, while continuing to love and mourn him, is an incredibly realistic yet complex view of growing older and losing a loved one. The balance and struggle of accepting faults while mourning someone is something I can relate to, and I appreciated seeing this represented. These characters acknowledge the faults of their father while learning to accept their own grief among other mixed emotions, and I think this is incredibly important.

With aching emotions Acevedo creates a beautiful portrait of grief and love. I was yet again impressed by her and I continue to look forward to her future writing.

-SS

Works cited: “ASN Aircraft Accident Airbus A30.” Aviation Safety Network, Flight Safety Foundation, 20 Apr. 2014, web.archive.org/web/20140420004450/aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20011112-0.

Acevedo, Elizabeth. Clap When You Land. Quill Tree Books, 2020.

Garcia-Navarro, Lulu. “Tragedy Reveals 2 Secret Families In 'Clap When You Land'.” NPR, 10 May 2020.