candelibri 's review for:

Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat

4.5

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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“These were our bedtime stories. Takes that haunted our parents and made them laugh at the same time. We never understood them until we were fully grown and they became our sole inheritance.”

This collection. Insert adjectives of wonder, of pain, of grief, of joy, of bewilderment, of awe, of heartbreak but ultimately of brilliance shining forth from that resilient people who still stand with their chests forward from the island of Haiti. 

Each story is separate yet connected, eventually forcing you to step back and view the larger brushstrokes of the canvas Danticat has masterfully created. She grips you from the get with “Children of the Sea,” the story of two lovers forced apart as one flees by boat to Miami and the other remains behind at the mercy of the military occupation. In “A Wall of Fire Rising,” a father is forced to confront the fact that in Haiti he will never do anything more than wait in line for a job to clean toilets but dreams of flying a hot air balloon - yet it’s easier to take off than it is to land and the stories resolution left me with chills. 

For myself, those stories were the highlights of the collection and I kept waiting for the rest to blow me away. However, Danticat shows that it is also in the quiet moments that Haitians are resilient. It is not just the awful and the macabre that we should focus on but in the small every day trials and joys - and that is where Danticat excels.