Two sisters mourn their father's death after his plane crashes on a flight to the Dominican Republic. - (Baker & Taylor)

An Odyssey Honor Audiobook

In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.

Don't miss the audiobook, read by Elizabeth Acevedo, the beloved author and narrator of The Poet X, winner of an Odyssey Honor and an AudioFile Earphones Award winner. 

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other. 

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Producers/directors, take note: this is how to effectively record an audiobook with more than a single narrator. Here, Marte reads Camino's chapters, while Acevedo picks up Yahaira's. For chapters featuring both girls, Marte and Acevedo take turns in dialogue. When their words overlap, both narrators speak together. Simple as that sounds, multi-voiced casts rarely achieve the authentic accuracy listeners are gifted here. Indeed, Acevedo's latest is remarkable, an affecting back-and-forth between two teens whose lives are irreparably altered when a Dominican Republic-bound flight crashes, leaving no survivors. Waiting for a father who never arrives is Camino, raised by her aunt in the DR while her father works in NYC nine months of the year. Waiting for a father who will never return is New Yorker Yahaira, whose silence toward him over the past year can now never be broken. Born almost 17 years ago, just two months apart to different mothers in separate countries, Camino and Yahaira are suddenly connected by the same dead man, and in need of navigating brave new futures. Marte, a writer/performer of Black Dominican descent, makes her audiobook debut with a pitch-perfect performance, agilely balancing Camino's vulnerability, tenacity, admiration, disappointment, and hope. Once again, Dominican American YA powerhouse Acevedo (Poet X 2018) ciphers her printed poetry into aural alchemy, voicing angry, frustrated, longing, searching Yahaira. Together, the dynamic duo transforms strangers into sisters. Grades 8-12. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.