Clap When You Land Book Review

Just like a typical summer, as August rolled around, I decided to go ahead and get a head start on my summer reading. Every summer I am forced to read a book that is not enjoyable, but I always manage to figure something out. This year, however, things were different. After reading through the list of a measly 21 books, each summary sounding just like the last, I came to the conclusion that I would have to settle for a decent title to be able to somewhat enjoy my summer reading experience of 2021. Little did I know that “decent” was much too high of a praise for the apparently award winning book, “Clap When You Land”. According to the summary, this book is about the journey of two girls who loose their dad in a plane accident. Right off the bat, I new this was a book I could loose sleep over, considering the fact that it is based off of my biggest fear, a plane crash. However, the plot wasn’t the thing that caused so many sleepless nights, it was what was written on the pages that really got me. I can’t even describe the aggravation and anxiety this book brought me night after night, singuarly because of how bad it was in so many different ways. This book brought me so much aggravation, that I can happily write a 5-paragraph essay proving the fact that it does not deserve any one of it’s 4 ½ stars. I mean, how did it even get that rating in the first place?

At the beginning of the book, we get a peak into the lives of two sisters, Camino and Yahaira. How do I know that they are sisters you ask? Well, I figured that out in the summary well before I even set my eyes on the first page. Camino lives in Puerto Rico and only gets to see her father during the summer, and Yahaira lives in New York and gets to see her father year-round, minus the summer of course. Right after the brief explanation of the lives that these girls live, we are brisked into the fact that their father suddenly dies on Flight 1112 from New York to Puerto Rico. And what is about to entail is honestly just sad, but not because these girls’ father is dead. We go through hundreds of pages of Camino and Yahaira grieving him. Now, you would think that this was a brilliant, life-changing thing to read, but that’s terribly wrong. We, as an audience, never got the chance to connect with either of these characters, making it impossible to even care if their beloved Papi is dead. On top of that, since the chapters are from either Camino or Yahaira’s point of view, it’s extremely difficult (and frankly boring) to read. I found myself searching for key words such as “chess” or “Mami” to signify Yahaira and “Tia” or “swimming” to signify Camino, because these sisters were almost exactly alike. This provided heaps of confusion, but more importantly, endless boredom for the reader, considering the fact that it meant double the amount of sorrow and grief for us to endure.

As we move on to the center of this book, you can expect more of the same. (This book was so boring that now I sound like a weather reporter). Camino is wondering how she will live without the comforts that her father’s money brought her, and Yahaira is just trying to wrap her head around how she truly feels about her father. There’s this “big secret” that she makes a great deal about, even though I already knew what it was from the beginning, and, that’s about all. I will have to say though, almost every line in this book is some type of metaphor or example of figurative language. At the beginning of the book I thought it actually benefited it, but as I got further along, I realized that it honestly could only make it worse. I’m all for figurative language and higher-level thinking when it comes to reading, but number one, a lot of these metaphors weren’t even that deep, and number two, I stopped paying attention to them entirely when I realized that these girls were seriously going to talk about their pain and struggling for the next hundred pages.

I was about to lose my mind, when finally, out of the blue, Yahaira stops grieving and actually does something somewhat exciting! I thought this day would never come! Yahaira sneaks over to Puerto Rico to see her long lost sister for the first time. They make a whole scene out of it, which wasn’t very interesting if you ask me, considering the fact that I knew this would happen all along. (As you can tell, this book was so predictable it’s not even funny). Anyways, the part that kind of annoys me is that they breeze through their father’s funeral without any details! Like, I was honestly getting attached to the father with how much the girls were grieving over him, and that’s the part that they skip over? I just cannot win with this book, now can I? Getting back to the plot, Camino decides to steal Yahaira’s money and identity and fly off to New York. Now that’s something I didn’t see coming! But then again, I never even got to know Camino in the first place. With only a couple dozen pages left, I thought that I was in the clear. I was going to finish this book strong, turn around, and get on with my review. But no, they have to squeeze in that abusive scene at the end, leaving about two pages for a “happy ending”. This book truly did deserve a clap after I finished it, thanking the “higher being” that I survived without having too big of a mental breakdown.

In all seriousness though, this book, and summer reading experience for that matter, was a disappointment. I was disappointed that I wasted away precious vacation time to read this book, and disappointed that it wasn’t any different from the rest on that list. I guess I just couldn’t get by this summer without reading the cookie-cutter violence meets romance genre that every teen is “supposed” to enjoy. That’s the thing that I just don’t understand. Where’s the innocence? Where are the mysteries that don’t involve a mass murder? Where are the fantasies that don’t involve a secrect lover? And where are the books like “Clap When You Land”, a story about two sisters who lost their father, for heaven’s sake, that don’t involve a man trying to make money with the wrong intentions (to put it lightley). Is this what this world has come to, and if so, is there any author out there that writes books that are actually fun to read? Because if not, I’m either going to have to become one myself, or quit reading altogether, because after what I went through this summer, I don’t think I can make it through a book like “Clap When You Land” again without it leaving me questioning our society altogether.