Reviews

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maritza Moulite, Maika Moulite

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distant_ships's review

5.0

This book was beautiful. Outstanding prose and character development.

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine is written in multiple formats (emails, chats, essays, newspaper stories, diary entries, etc..) and is about a spirited, witty, whip smart Haitian-American girl named Alaine. Despite attending a prestigious Catholic school and living a fairly privileged life, she carries around some heavy emotional baggage. Most of this stems from the pretty much non-existent relationship she has with her super famous mother, but could it also be due to a longstanding family curse? When an "incident" at school gets her sent to Haiti for a semester immersion project, it's not for the vacation she's always wanted. While there, she learns about some dark family secrets, starts falling for an older intern and finds herself dabbling in Vodou. And that's only the beginning of the drama that is Alaine's life...

It took me about 70 pages in to get into this book, and I almost gave up. But then suddenly the pace picked up, the storyline got seriously interesting and I couldn't put it down. Then at the very end, a big event messed it up for me again and made the story a little too far fetched. BUT I still really, really enjoyed immersing myself in the middle part of this story while learning a little bit about the geography, culture and history of Haiti. Also I loved getting to know Alaine.

sydney_arcuri's review

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3.0

3.5/5
rtc

michelleloretta's review

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4.0

Loved this book! This is a coming of age (and culture) story wrapped in a love letter to Haiti. The Moulite sisters did such an outstanding job of creating this fun protagonist in Alaine while sharing the history, and a rich yet complicated tradition (with voodoo and everything). Don’t poo poo this for being YA... it’s outstanding.

lplonski's review

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funny slow-paced

2.0

nicolemhewitt's review

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I absolutely loved the Haitian setting of this book and how much of the culture and landscape we got to see (including food, language, customs, and more). I also really appreciated a story about dealing with the repercussions of Alzheimer's (and, especially, early-onset Alzheimer's, since it's rarely talked about). Alaine had a strained relationship with her mother, but she'd always thought they'd have time to fix that---so losing her mother to this disease was doubly painful for her. I wasn't 100% sure how I felt personally about the "curse" storyline, especially since there was some implication that Alaine's mother's illness could have been caused by this curse, but I do know that in Haiti many people do believe in things like curses, so it's not an unrealistic storyline. I really liked this book, but I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I had read a physical copy (especially because the digital ARC I read had some formatting issues that made reading confusing)---I think in general a physical copy would have been easier to read because of the epistolary nature of the book. Still, overall a great read!

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

t0rixoxo's review

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lowkey just wasnt feeling it. i like the concept but it wasnt executed well imo. the switch between email and real life didn’t do it for me, and some of the “emails” didnt feel like a recollection of what had happened, more like it was telling what was currently happening.

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