It’s Not You, It’s Me – Clap When You Land

Clap When You Land

by Elizabeth Acevedo
Setting: Dominican Republic and U.S.
Genres: Fiction, Young Adult
Published on May 5, 2020
Format: Audiobook Source: Audible

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.

I have loved this author’s previous two books.  I was so excited to get to listen to this one as well.  However, I didn’t really enjoy this book.  I think this is an issue of having wrong expectations of what the book was going to be about.  

Reading that description, I expected to hear a story about two sisters who find out that they share a father.  I was interested in that.  Instead this book is a study of grief from several different viewpoints.  It does that very well but because that wasn’t the story that I thought I was signing up for I was frustrated through most of the book.  I just wanted them to get to the point where the girls meet each other.  That doesn’t happen until about 3/4 of the way through.  

The father in this story was just a horrible person as you find out the facts about his life.  It was hard for me to care about their grief for this man when he had been not good to the women around him.  There was also a subplot about a man trying to prey on Camino now that her father was dead that I’m sure was realistic but it was quite disturbing.  It added to the whole “women are forever being victimized by men and they have to just take it” feeling that the story had.  I just was not in the mood for it.  

So, great writing as expected from this author but it wasn’t for me.  I think if you know what the book is really about, you might enjoy it more when you are in the mood for something deep and sad. Â