Review of Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

 

Akwaeke Emezi’s young adult fantasy novel Pet follows Jam, a selectively mute trans girl, as she embarks on a hunt with Pet, a creature that emerges from one of her mother’s paintings after drops of her blood meet its surface. Before Jam’s world is altered forever, she lives in the aftermath of a revolution in Lucille, a utopian city. The revolution worked to rid Lucille of beings called “monsters” by way of “angels.” Or so Jam’s family believes. Communicating telepathically, Pet tells Jam that her best friend, Redemption, is in danger and only she and Pet can seek out the monster that threatens him. Against the wishes of her mother, Bitter, and father, Aloe, the strange pair begin their hunt for the monsters they believe were defeated. Readers are asked the same question put to Jam and Aloe: are we too afraid to see the unseen and to know the unknown?

Forgetting is how the monsters come back. (20) 

At the center of the narrative is Jam, a selectively mute young woman. Her muteness was an inclusion I hadn’t seen before, where a character chose to speak only when she deemed it necessary. Jam spends much of the story using sign language with those around her. However, when Pet appears, their telepathy provides yet another avenue for Jam to communicate her thoughts and feelings. Despite Pet’s ability to read her thoughts, Emezi gives Jam a great deal of narrative agency by asserting that Jam speaks out loud on her own terms. In the moments she is speaking, we, as readers, understand her urgency and desire to impart her own ideas in a world that prioritizes sound.

Of course there were still monsters, Jam thought. Could you really make something stop existing just by shoving it away somewhere else? (50)

Jam’s relationship with her best friend, Redemption, and his family illustrate a wonderful example of community. Redemption’s family’s home dynamics come to represent the power of unity in home-making. When Emezi introduces Redemption’s family, you’re immediately immersed in their complete care. You can almost smell what Redemption’s mother, Malachite, is preparing in the kitchen and hear his baby cousins playing. I also loved reading about the friendship between Redemption and Jam. Their bond is clearly intimate and purely platonic, always assuaging one another’s fears and anxieties. Together, they are a wonderful example of a friendship that thrives without the pressures of heteronormativity, which sets Emezi’s story apart from what we might encounter in this genre.

The world we enter when opening up Pet is easy to describe as “utopic”: Lucille is a town whose monsters were eradicated by angels. However, Emezi is careful to note that this utopia did not come about solely by the miracle of angels. Creating Lucille took work, labor, and trial and error. In this world, identity is fluid, evolving, and boundless. However, Pet is only there for one thing: to eliminate a monster. The knowledge of a monster in Lucille shocks Jam. She knows there aren’t supposed to be any more monsters in Lucille. Her father, Aloe, has reassured her plenty before. This novel deals with difficult topics, such as sexual ab*se, and Emezi doesn’t shy away from them. They grant their characters a great deal of narrative agency. I was inspired by their determination to rid their world of a monster and continue their practice of community care.

A pool of water with the moon reflecting in it… who would want to throw a stone and break the picture? It is fine to be afraid, to have a fine fear, to not want to cross a fine line. (94)

For Jam, the world seems split in two: she lives in a world where verbal communication is prioritized, and another with its own interrelated, nuanced layers of non-verbal understanding. I was drawn to her through these multiple modalities, and moved to follow her lead as an emotionally mature, loving daughter. A third world is opened up when Pet emerges from her mother’s latest painting, however, that challenges both the closeness she feels with her parents and her understanding of the world. Born from a deep maternal legacy that drives much of the narrative we encounter, the connection between Bitter, Jam, and Pet is shared (literally) by blood and through art. Pet’s maternal nature allows Jam to navigate between these two worlds she finds herself in with deaf/mute culture while simultaneously reckoning with the split she’s experiencing in her reality. Pet brings Jam to an understanding that monsters are still lurking, despite all of our efforts to eradicate them, whether it be through pure goodness or rehabilitation. However, despite this painful reality, Pet’s presence and collaboration with the kids reveals how the power rests in the voices of our youth, no matter how they show up in the world.

DN

Review on "Concrete Rose" by Angie Thomas

Hardback cover

Angie Thomas’ first novel, The Hate U Give, was nothing short of groundbreaking. After her sophomore novel, On the Come Up, Thomas decided to return to something a little more familiar to readers.

The first thing fans heard about Angie Thomas’ junior novel was that this was a character we already knew in her “Garden Heights” universe, where The Hate U Give and On The Come Up are set.

Fans went into a frenzy.

Through Twitter, followers of the author soon learned the protagonist’s name: Maverick Carter, the father of Starr Carter who was the protagonist of The Hate U Give. Concrete Rose is a prequel set seventeen years before the award-winning The Hate U Give.

Although it’s a prequel, it is not at all necessary to read The Hate U Give before Concrete Rose. It felt so exciting to return to the Carter family, but if Concrete Rose is your first Angie Thomas novel the only thing that you would miss are character cameos like Maverick who was in The Hate U Give as an adult. As a returning reader to Thomas’ novels, it is exciting to see the backstory of Mav, which was briefly alluded to in The Hate U Give. Not much of Mav’s teenage years are discussed in The Hate U Give. From what I recall, what is discussed is that his oldest child, Seven, has a different mother than the rest of his siblings, which is also discussed in Concrete Rose, and The Hate U Give also mentions that Mav was incarcerated sometime between Concrete Rose and The Hate U Give when his children were young.

Going into the novel, I actually couldn’t recall many details of Mav in The Hate U Give besides the two points I detailed, and honestly I didn’t need to recall that is it is part of what the book is about. The Hate U Give in this case serves to give backstory for Mav.

Thomas’ newest novel Concrete Rose follows seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter who is growing up in Garden Heights as the man of the house while his father is incarcerated. Maverick, or Mav, has to juggle school with bringing in money for his family through dealing drugs for the infamous King Lord gang.

However, when he learns he is the father of a baby, his whole life is turned around.

One thing I wanted to note is Mav’s emotions throughout the novel, and how he expresses them. After losing a beloved family member, Dre, to gang violence, Mav is understandably devastated, but struggles to express himself, especially around his family:

“Men ain’t supposed to cry. We supposed to be strong enough to carry our boulders and everybody else’s…Ain’t got no time to grieve” (Thomas, 120-121), and later, he says “I can’t sit around crying about Dre. I gotta be a man” (Thomas, 163).

Manhood, especially Black manhood is a prominent theme in the novel.

Black children or teenagers are often viewed as much older, or at least given the responsibilities of someone much older, and for Mav, he truly has to take the role of an adult and a father, when he should just have to worry about his schooling or prom, but instead he can barely even focus on school.

Although set more than twenty years ago, the struggles of Mav are ones that continue even today.

This seventeen-year-old is dealing with gang violence, having a baby, looking after his grieving family, and trying to financially make ends meet among so many other things, and he feels like he can’t even show his emotions. He has to put on a show of “being a man” but this idea is not often depicted as congruent with crying or showing sadness. By showing this conflict, Thomas subtly points to the unique pressure that Mav is put under as a young Black man.

Cleyvis Natera excellently articulates the pressure of manhood in Mav’s life in a review from Time Magazine:

“Manhood becomes the confining praxis toward resolution: Is he a man? How big of a man? How brave of a man? We come to understand that loss ushers Maverick to redefine himself beyond the confines of gender norms: he must see himself not as doomed to the legacy of his father’s actions, but as a parent and a human being focused on the future.”(Natera, 2021)

With Mav’s father’s incarceration, Mav is working to define his own manhood while also working on surviving. Mav does what he believes is necessary to survive, having to grow up even more than others his age.

What I think is incredibly important is how the pressures Mav is put under leads him to drug dealing. Mav sells drugs with King, an infamous drug dealer in the King Lord gang, to make a little bit more money for his family and his new baby. At no point though is Mav demonized for this decision, which I think is not only a fresh viewpoint on a black teenager dealing drugs, but also a critical viewpoint to look at why the person made the decision to deal drugs, and ultimately how his society let him down, instead of looking at him negatively for it.

Paperback cover

Mav is put under pressure that have existed for other Black men, and Thomas acknowledges the balance she had to achieve while writing between realism and falling into a stereotype that has been associated with Black men in an interview with Time Magazine:  

“How do I fight against that [stereotypes]? And for me, it was again about looking at the person, looking at the why - because that's how you connect people who may not even identify with Maverick. You may not live in a neighborhood where there are gangs, but you can understand wanting to be protected. You may not have a parent who's incarcerated, but you can understand wanting to help your family out financially. These are all human emotions.” (Natera, 2021)

As Thomas states, at the heart of this novel is pure, raw emotion. She fights these potential stereotypes by grounding the characters in dynamic, realistic actions and words that can be related to. Mav has real intense emotions because Mav represents just one real Black man, not a stereotype.

Although Mav believes he can’t cry at first, his boss, Mr. Wyatt, emphasizes the importance of emotions:

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that Black men don’t feel emotions. Guess it’s easier to not see us as human when you think we’re heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else” (Thomas, 164).

Almost halfway through the novel here, Mav cries for the first time, and I felt some sort of weight off my shoulders as he cried. I spent 160 pages watching this character build up a wall to separate a part of himself from the people who love him, and then he becomes brave enough to knock it down and show his grief and anxiety.

Mav is constantly trying to fit into this role of a Black man that society has created, when he finally learns that Black men are the only ones who should be defining the role of a Black man. After pages and pages of feeling out of control, he learns he can define himself and his identity.

Concrete Rose is a beautiful portrait of a Black man growing up in America and learning to define himself, instead of letting the world define him. This is one of those books that I think everyone should read. Although it is marketed as a YA novel, Angie Thomas is also read and loved by adults, and I feel like adolescent and adult readers alike would love and benefit from this book.

Although a young adult novel, I feel that young adults are not the only readers who could benefit from this novel, and this novel could both provide an example of the Black experience to non-Black readers, while also providing a sense of familiarity or understanding for Black readers.

I commend Angie Thomas for consistently coming out with both relevant and yet timeless young adult novels, and I highly recommend you give Concrete Rose a read.

-SS

Works Cited:

Natera, Cleyvis. “Https://Time.com/5928689/Concrete-Rose-Review-Angie-Thomas/.” Time, 12 Jan. 2021, time.com/5928689/concrete-rose-review-angie-thomas/.

Thomas, Angie. Concrete Rose. HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Photos from Goodreads.com

One of the Good Ones Book Review

 

Who gets to be “one of the good ones” and why?

Maika and Maritza Moulite’s sophomore novel explores this concept and adds a mysterious twist to it. One of the Good Ones follows sisters Happi and Genny in the aftermath of their sister’s (Kezi) mysterious death. Kezi, a teen activist and YouTuber, is arrested at a social justice protest and dies while in police custody. She is deemed “one of the good ones” by the media, but her family is left grieving. To honor Kezi, Happi and Genny embark on a road trip Kezi had planned before her death using an heirloom copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book. One of the Good Ones discusses a wide range of topics such as family and social injustice.

The novel opens three months after Kezi’s death. Happi and her family are attending a ceremony where Kezi was to accept an award for her activist work. As she is listening to the ceremony presenters, Happi reflects on the aftermath of her sister’s death and how the media has portrayed Kezi:

“She was mine before she was anyone else’s. All mine. Partly mine. Now she belongs to you and them and shirts and rallies and songs and documentaries. They say she has A Bright Future Ahead of Her and She Was a Star Whose Light Burned Out Too Soon. She Was Going to Make a Difference. That’s all true, but it is not the Truth. She was more than her future. She had a past. She was living her present…She was my sister before she became your martyr, after all” (Moulite 11).

This excerpt from the novel expresses its overarching commentary on who is worthy of remembrance by showing how Kezi has been deemed “one of the good ones.” In the above quotation Kezi has become a headline, a trend but to Happi she was her sister. Happi counteracts the sensationalism of Kezi’s death by presenting a headline of her own, which she calls “the Truth.” The truth is what does not get circulated around the news or social media and Happi is there to remind the reader of it. Happi reminds us how before her death Kezi’s story belonged to no one else but Kezi and those who loved her, to them she was a person. This beginning passage sets the tone for the rest of the novel, which explores who these three sisters are in relation to the “one of the good ones” concept and their family history.  

Authors Maika and Maritza Moulite do an excellent job of developing characters who are less than perfect. This is mainly depicted through Happi’s character arc. Happi is constantly juxtaposed with her sister Kezi. Kezi is studious and invested in her relationships with her family and family history; whereas Happi keeps her family at arm’s length, is more preoccupied with her peers, and self-involved. Kezi is positioned as the responsible one while Happi is the more rebellious one. The juxtaposition between Happi and Kezi exemplifies how society expects members of the Black community to be perfect in every way in order to be deemed worthy of remembrance. This is why characters like Happi need to come in abundance. Characters who learn how their actions affect those around them and once they realize such mistakes they are shown reflecting on their choices. Happi’s character arc depicts how easy it is to forget that those close to us are going through different experiences. Happi's arc also shows how there can be growth without changing the core self, an aspect which I loved. Happi was not perfect and that was the beauty of her character because she was depicted as living her Truth. 

One of the Good Ones presents multiple perspectives, some being Happi's, Kezi before her death, and various of their ancestors. The novel weaves the stories of these different family members through a physical item, The Negro Motorist Green Book. This guide was used by Black Americans during the segregation era to travel safely across the US, it catalogs places which welcomed Black folks. The novel traces the history of the copy in Happi and Kezi’s family through flashbacks of their ancestors. These show how the use of the Green Book changed throughout the generations, but also how despite the book being out of print the US is not a safe place for Black Americans. By doing this Maika and Maritza Moulite present us with the truth of this family and the importance of being connected with our family history because to know it is to understand something bigger than us. Using a physical object, tracing its history through the family, and creating a new narrative with it was absolutely brilliant. The story’s structure offers full immersion by showcasing family history and providing the reader with a larger scope of the story. This aspect of the novel took me by surprise since I was expecting the story to follow mainly the sisters, but instead it depicted the importance of being involved with your family and knowing who they were.

One of the Good Ones is a wonderful exploration of the concept and should not be bound by one genre. The story is a contemporary one because of the themes explored but it contains elements of mystery. The mystery of it will keep the reader on edge while providing a roller coaster of emotions. The use of valuable physical objects to depict family ties, the narrative structure, and the character work are just some of the amazing aspects of this novel. One of the Good Ones contains multitudes and it’s a read you won’t want to miss!

 

-NA

 

Moulite, Maika, and Maritza Moulite. One of the Good Ones. Inkyard Press, 2021.

Author and cover images from the publisher.

Review of "Black Girl Unlimited"

Echo Brown’s debut novel, Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard may have been one of my favorite books of 2020, and I don’t give those titles out to just any book. 

Black Girl Unlimited is described as a magical realism memoir. If this sounds counterintuitive, I promise it works. Echo, the protagonist, is growing up on the East Side of Cleveland with her mother and two brothers. As she navigates through life, she frames her experiences with elements of magic. What I love about this book is that it fights, and succeeds, to stand out as a unique reading experience. 

Instead of chapters, the book is split into nineteen sections, or “Lessons” of wizard training that Echo learns throughout her life, including “Evading the Black Veil”, “Performing Miracles of Unity”, and “Forgiving Yourself”. 

Although this book tackles a lot of heavy topics, including rape, depression, poverty, and drug use, Brown still manages to hold onto the magic throughout the book. 

The character Echo refers to herself and her mother as wizards, thus the lessons of wizard training at the start of each section. Although this is the magical realism element of the memoir, as I read the book I felt as if Echo and her mother truly were wizards. This book isn’t just being silly, but the use of them as wizards feels purposeful and real because this is based on her real life. 

Brown states that these lessons (the chapter titles) were healing work that she has done through her life due to her trauma, so each of these lessons was inspired by, as Brown states, her therapeutic and spiritual work to heal herself. She continues, “I also think some of the lessons are rooted in bigger themes I have aspired to in my real life that readers also may find useful. For example, the last lesson, “you are unlimited, be fearless in your pursuits” is something I remind myself of over and over especially when fears and insecurities rise. My hope is that some of the lessons will be inspirational for readers, reminding them of their own potential and abilities” (We Need Diverse Books, 2020). By putting in these lessons she learned based on her real life, they feel relatable and attainable. 

Although dealing with magic, the book breaks down real life stereotypes. Beautifully said by Karen Valby in the New York Times, “Brown’s greatest gift is evoking intimacy, and as she delicately but firmly snatches the reader’s attention, we are allowed to see this girl of multitudes and her neighborhood of contradictions in full and specific detail. Stereotypes, like the bitter myth of the strong black woman, wither on the page” (Valby, 2020). 

Echo the character is balancing the worlds of stereotypes, school, her home life, and her magic, while also dealing with a “black veil”. 

There is a reoccurring image of “black veils” that Echo sees over all people. She first sees a disembodied veil: 

“At first, I assume it’s a bird, but it doesn’t move like a bird…I see it, the black veil, right outside, hovering in the dark of night. I see clearly now that it is an ominous creature with no face, shaped like a rectangular piece of fabric, that ruffles and moves like a flag in the wind.” (Brown, 77)

Her mother reveals she also has seen the veil in times of intense trauma: “Black and scary-like, hoverin’ right ova me. I started screamin’ at da top of my lungs ‘cause I didn’t know what it was…I would see it e’ry night, until finally, I sank so far down, at da bottom of myself, it finally swooped on down and covered me, my whole head. I felt like I was suffocatin’. I couldn’t breathe.” (Brown, 80)

Author Echo Brown Brown highlights an interesting metaphor of generational trauma. Like the trauma Echo’s mother passes to her, her mother also passes what I would describe as an ability to see the veil, but Echo’s mother emphasizes that the black veil must be evaded. 

Brown worked with tweaking this metaphor throughout the writing process: 

“It felt like the black veil needed to descend somehow and submerge the victim, so it eventually changed the black veil that wraps itself around its victims. This was another instance where it wasn’t enough to just describe depression as it is, which is so challenging in real life. I needed a magical concept to really describe its impact and effect in a way that straightforward reality would miss, which is how the concept of the black veil came about.” (We Need Diverse Books, 2020) 

Ultimately, Brown landed on a way to convey her trauma to the reader in such a concrete and innovative way, and in my opinion, an incredibly effective way as well. 

Only wizards, like Echo and her mother, can see this veil, but they must fight to keep the veil off: 

“Only way you can keep it off is to stay lifted. Got to stay spirited and in da light….Only way I can get mine off now is drankin’ and druggin’, othawise it’s always on me. I done learned how ta live in it mostly, but sometimes, I just cain’t control it, the darkness inside of me.” (Brown, 83) 

This section truly spoke to me. The depression is so powerful it has become a physical object that practically suffocates Echo, and appears to have pushed her mother into a deep addiction, something her mother struggles with throughout the novel. It is so real it turns into a physical black veil, almost described as a menacing creature or spirit, that must be evaded. Brown takes this portion of her life, potential trauma, and creates this metaphor of an object that can finally be understood or have logic applied to when these emotions can feel anything but logical. 

I think this is part of the importance of the magical realism in Brown’s novel. She has these events in life that she could not control and turns them into physical objects that as the author she can control. This book isn’t just Echo overcoming trauma, it’s the author rewriting her own trauma experience, as this is a memoir. Although I do not know to what exact extent the trauma in the novel is based on her own life, in this case the character Echo explores the idea of trauma to show how suffocating it can feel, while also how it is possible to overcome. 

Magical realism is a tool for Brown to portray trauma, and she uses that tool like an expert. In a way, the trauma as a physical object makes it feel possible to overcome. Trauma can feel incredibly abstract and therefore almost intangible to understand or simply deal with. By making her trauma a physical thing, it both shows the reader the overwhelming aspect of trauma, while also showing that it is possible to manage, in this case through “magic”, or her writing. Ultimately, a step of overcoming this appears to be through writing her own memoir. She wields the genre like a wizard controlling magic. 

I also notice Brown challenges the very nature of how books are written. She does this fascinating technique where she ends midsentence, then starts a new paragraph finishing the sentence but with a completely new idea. This sounds complicated but she still makes a full sentence.

Brown is not only turning what we think of memoirs on its head, but she even challenges the structure of how a book is written, as seen above. The character is not the only magic, this book itself is a magical experience made of careful artistry. 

An important aspect of the novel is she is challenging what a memoir is. We as the readers are not privy to knowing what truly did or did not happen because of the fantastical elements, so Brown is now in control of not just her narrative, but she can finally control her trauma at least to some degree. Brown takes her story and is finally able to control it. We are being guided through her story by her. Brown is there to control what is or is not seen of her in her story, something that through her experience she was initially powerless to. 

Although this is her first book, Brown has already made a name for herself in the book community. Brown shows care and expertise in her writing, creating a novel full of love and magic. I cannot wait for her sophomore novel, The Chosen One, set to publish in 2022. 

-SS 

Brown, Echo. Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard. Holt/Ottaviano, 2020.

“Q&A With Echo Brown: BLACK GIRL UNLIMITED.” We Need Diverse Books, 17 Jan. 2020,                diversebooks.org/qa-with-echo-brown-black-girl-unlimited/. 

Valby, Karen. “In Hollywood, Stories About People of Color Are Still Rare. These Y.A. Fantasy                Novels Pick Up the Slack.” The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2020,                                                                  www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/books/review/dark-and-deepest-red-anna-mari-mclemore-black-            girl-unlimited-echo-brown.html. 

Author and cover photo from goodreads.com

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.