Dear Haiti, Love Alaine
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“I couldn’t put Dear Haiti, Love Alaine down!” —New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory
Co-written by sisters Maika and Maritza Moulite, this exceptional debut novel captures a sparkling new voice and irrepressible heroine in a story sure to thrill fans of Nicola Yoon and Ibi Zoboi!
Alaine Beauparlant has heard about Haiti all her life…
But the stories were always passed down from her dad—and her mom, when she wasn’t too busy with her high-profile newscaster gig. But when Alaine’s life goes a bit sideways, it’s time to finally visit Haiti herself.
What she learns about Haiti’s proud history as the world’s first black republic (with its even prouder people) is one thing, but what she learns about her own family is another. Suddenly, the secrets Alaine’s mom has been keeping, including a family curse that has spanned generations, can no longer be avoided.
It’s a lot to handle, without even mentioning that Alaine is also working for her aunt’s nonprofit, which sends underprivileged kids to school and boasts one annoyingly charming intern.
But if anyone can do it all…it’s Alaine.
“Delightful.” —Essence magazine
"Stunning.” —Booklist (starred review)
Also by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite:
One of the Good Ones
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Presented as a series of text messages, emails, and diary entries, Maika and Maritza Moulite’s debut novel feels as up to the minute as your social-media feed. Spirited, smart, and in big trouble following an incident at her elite Miami prep school, Alaine Beauparlant has to spend the rest of her senior year on a “volunteer immersion project,” interning for her aunt’s charity in Haiti. Alaine uses her time on the island to reconnect with her divorced mother—a Washington political correspondent whose career has just imploded—and to discover her family’s homeland. She’s one of the most instantly likeable heroines we’ve met recently in YA fiction; we cared deeply about Alaine and the other memorable characters we met along the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alaine Beauparlant, 17, is the ambitious, impulsive, and highly opinionated first-generation Haitian-American daughter of divorced parents. Months shy of high school graduation, her future plans hit turbulence after an incident involving her political journalist mother and an overfamiliar politician. Following a poorly executed plot to defend her mother's honor against judgmental schoolmates at her private school, Alaine is suspended and sent to Haiti to volunteer with a charity app created by her aunt, the Haitian Minister of Tourism. There, Alaine comes face-to-face with family secrets and curses she's never known. Written as a series of intimate personal letters and emotional diary entries from Alaine, her mother, and her female ancestors, the Moulite sisters' well-conceived debut is an alternately funny and bittersweet story of loss, regret, love, and sacrifice, centered on the fictional female descendants of real-life Haitian queen Marie-Louise Coidavid. Seam-lessly blending story lines and allusions to Haiti's history and culture, the authors create an indelible, believable character in Alaine naive, dynamic, and brutally honest who stretches and grows as her remarkable, affectingly rendered family relationships do. Ages 13 up.
