Clap When You Land

anka.trini reviewed Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Review of 'Clap When You Land' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

DNF at 42 %

Not my cup of tea. The book wasn't as lyrical and poetic as I hoped.

Moreover, the book features one of my bookish pet peeves. One of the main characters lives in the Dominican Republic. So she'd speak Spanish with her family and peers. Of course, this book was written in English so the dialogue is translates into English, right? Then why would some sentences remain in Spanish? I know that it's because the different culture is to be shown. And yes, some expressions just don't work in another language or lose their significant meaning. But the Spanish sentences were mostly just easy expressions that you could figure out even if you don't speak the language at all.
This is just me rambling, though.

pithypants reviewed Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Review of 'Clap When You Land' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I'm glad I listened to this as an audiobook because the reading of it was lyrical, almost like a poem.

patchworkbunny reviewed Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Review of 'Clap When You Land' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

First time listening to a novel in verse on audio and the narration was a bit hit and miss. Some of it was excellent but then the sections that were more like prose were just like someone reading prose with odd pauses and inflections.

I liked the story well enough and will probably stick to to reading the text for her other books.

Heather reviewed Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Review of 'Clap When You Land' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

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 …

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. This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story