Every line is laced with betrayal and longing as the teens struggle with loving someone despite his imperfections.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Yahaira’s sections have more breaks and urgent, staccato beats.

Camino’s verses read like poetic prose, flowing and straightforward. Acevedo balances the two perspectives with ease, contrasting the girls’ environments and upbringings. The book is told in alternating chapters with headings counting how many days have passed since the fateful event. Despite their differences, they slowly forge a tenuous bond. The half sisters are vastly different-Yahaira is dark skinned, a chess champion who has a girlfriend Camino is lighter skinned, a talented swimmer who helps her curandera aunt deliver neighborhood babies. The author pays reverent tribute to the lives lost in a similar crash in 2001. Each protagonist grieves the tragic death of their larger-than-life father and tries to unravel the tangled web of lies he kept secret for almost 20 years. Their lives collide when this man, their dad, dies in an airplane crash with hundreds of other passengers heading to the island. Yahaira Rios, who lives in Morningside Heights, hasn’t spoken to her dad since the previous summer, when she found out he has another wife in the Dominican Republic.

Tackles family secrets, toxic masculinity, and socio-economic differences with incisive clarity and candor.Ĭamino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and yearns to go to Columbia University in New York City, where her father works most of the year.

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