It’s time for another quarantine book review! I was recently reading a couple of blogs about accounts on being a Caribbean first-generation and came across this book. Aside from the enticing and beautiful cover, I became really excited after reading it’s summary and looking more into the authors that wrote the book. So without further ado, let the book review begin!
About the Author
“Dear Haiti, Love Alaine” is written by two sisters, Maika and Maritza Moulite. These two sisters grew up in Florida and were raised by their parents who are Haitian immigrants. In the Author’s note, the sisters describe their work as “a love letter to our dear, Haiti” and their writing was nothing less than that. This was the two sister’s debut book and has received much positive feedback from many sources!
About the Book
The Moulite sisters take us on an adventure through our lens of the main character, Alaine Beauparlant. Alaine is a strong-minded, spunky, good-with words, witty teenager in her final years of high school. She is at the time in her life where she finds herself dealing with the stress of heading off to college as well as trying to deal with the pressure of being the daughter of a famous TV journalist. After a failed presentation at her Catholic school that causes way more commotion than it should have, she finds herself suspended and sent to Haiti to live with her Aunt where she is told she will be working on a community service project. Alaine invites the reader on a wild adventure as she tries to navigate her new life with the addition of some unexpected life changes thrown her way all while trying to understand her place in her Haitian family history.
My Thoughts
The book is written in an epistolary style through a variety of mediums such as narratives, letters, articles, emails, diary entries, texts, Slackr updates, and so much more. The ability for the authors to curate a story thorough these means was quiet impressive. When I first started reading the story I thought I would get distracted by the constant switching of mediums but instead found myself even more engaged.
Alaine is a character who I got a chance to relate to since my mom and grandparents are also from the Caribbean. Alaine is portrayed as strong-willed and adventurous. Her witty comments and curiosity bright life and light to the book. Her character was relatable, modern, and real. Throughout the book, the reader gets to have the special intimate moments with Alaine where she takes off her mask of being big, bold, and without fear that I think is really important for her character development. We get to see her multifaceted emotional qualities in a way that aids the reader in “rooting for her” when even some descions she makes wouldn’t necessarily be our first choice.
The book even goes as far as to teaching us a little bit of the Haitian Revolution. This is something that I loved. I found myself wanting to know more and more about certain people and events that happened during the Haitian Revolution due to my lack of knowledge. I love books that make me go read for more.
In all honesty, I was impressed at how much was packed into this story line. I felt so many different types of feelings while reading this book all while getting sprinkles of social and economic history every time I picked up the book to read.
I think that it is really important that Alaine is portrayed as a first-generation Haitian-American in the book. Sometimes throughout the book she, if I may, “questions” the “validity” of her Haitian culture which I think is a reality for many children and grandchildren who grow up in America. I think that this story is important because not only does it go through the journey of validity for her own identity, but it almost serves as permission for others in her similar situation to feel encouraged to learn more about where their family came from, their customs, their language, their food, in a way that provides a small sense of encouragement that it too belongs to them.
