I don’t know if that is only me or other readers experience this too, but it feels like older I get it is harder to find books I will so easily proclaim as “perfect”, “amazing”, “favorite”. So when I say all of those things for the latest Elizabeth Acevedo novel, you can definitely be sure that I mean it with my whole heart.

Clap When You Land is a novel in verse and a great example of “own voices” in young adult literature. Written by Acevedo, daughter of Dominican immigrants in the USA, Clap When You Land tells a story about complex cultural identity and family ties. It starts with an airplane crash and a way how its consequences determine the lives of two seemingly unconnected teenage girls, Camino from the Dominican Republic and Yahaira from New York.