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I was so immersed in this story of these two sisters and all the lies their dad kept and their personal issues. The novel also handles other thematic notes with so much clarity and grace; namely the question of identity, what it means to grow up in a world you felt only halfway inside of and constantly question your claim to your parents’ roots when you’ve never set foot in their world.

The topics of grief, identity and love are presented with care but also with the raw emotion expected. Why I loved this book: I've said about her other books, but it's a little heartbreaking to me that I'm reading these as an adult. Yahaira Rios, a Dominican American New York girl, a former star chess player who carries the secret that knocked her father off the pedestal she had built for him, also loses a father on that flight. There were so many moments and experiences that Acevedo captures that were things I've never seen or don't often seen explored in fiction. The anger you feel for her makes you want to just take El Cero apart, and it sucks how realistic the scenes of El Cero are for many young women in countries like DR.

Also, this is a story that touches on a lot of topics, but if you are expecting a deep dive into any one of them, into the complexities of immigration, poverty, split families, adultery, island living, you won't enjoy this. With secrets their father left behind and unspoken words, the two girls find out about each other in unexpected ways, never thinking about how they might have had someone who shared their same features while being miles and miles away. Her father goes home to the Dominican Republic each summer, which causes a strain on his relationship with her mother. Acevedo's writing reminds me a little like that of Anna-Marie McLemore's - beautiful, inspiring, whimsical - but it was difficult for me to read it correctly because it's poetry. I love that it puts that idea at the center of this story, and then populates it with all of these incredible and strong women.

During my listen of the audiobook, I was preoccupied with keeping the two sisters apart, and was mainly focused on the plot surrounding the death of their father, and their mourning and grieving periods. Two things in this novel I especially loved: this story of a Dominican man living in the US, a family in each location, is one that isn't as uncommon as maybe people think. A story of the difference money can make, and of the crippling grip of poverty and the hold it has over even the most determined lives. How can Cami and Yaya love their father and mourn him and at the same time wonder if they can ever really forgive him?

Overflowing with truths of the heart, and truths about inequalities that need to be broken, while also addressing the complexities of what it means to be of a place, I can't praise this highly enough. One of the things we see is the risk to young women being taken advantage of by men resulting in owing a “debt” or needing to go to certain lengths to survive, seeing Camino trying desperately to avoid that life for herself after losing the protection her Father had provided her during his life was eye opening to the culture most of us aren’t aware of. I also found it interesting to see their intercultural misunderstandings: "She asks if I can pick her up from the airport. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this woman is incapable of writing anything but 5 star masterpieces.