I'm not one to give up on a book even if it's not thrilling me. If reading it feels like a chore, then it's not fun and I know it is time to DNF the book. Unfortunately, the book Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite is my first DNF of 2019. I wanted so badly to enjoy this book, but it just feel short of my expectations.

It's true that contemporary isn't my favorite genre, but usually the ones I pick are amazing! I found Dear Haiti, Love Alaine on NetGalley and when I read the description I thought it sounded like an amazing story about a young teen dealing with the fallout of a poor choice on a school project and a hard topic that includes a health issue with her mother. I loved the idea that the book was about Haiti and raising voices for it, as it's very rare to find books set in Haiti.
One issue not with the writing itself but the formatting of the ebook, is that some of the paragraphs are out of order so you have to search through the recent pages to make the storyline fit. The different font colors and font styles are a bit distracting.
As for the actual story, I felt that Alaine was a solid character but her use of humor as a defense mechanism was a little bit overdone. Now I'm not sure if that was the intent of the author's, but it made it very hard for me to relate to Alaine. I loved her father and would have liked to see more of a story with him, and maybe he is more prevalent in the second half of the book. Celeste is a great character, Alaine's mom, I love that she is a news journalist and is this strong, fiery woman. Loved that Alaine was getting the chance to reconnect with her mother after an incident on Celeste's news show, and after a sad discovery, even though she was sent to Haiti as punishment for causing such an incident at school. Alaine's Tati Estelle (her Aunt) has an important role in Haiti as the Haitian Minister of Tourism and CEO of Patron Pal an app to help the poor in Haiti to make a change. Estelle has agreed to give Alaine an internship on her team in hopes that Alaine learns enough information to redo her school project to show that she's learned her lesson and now has more respect and knowledge for her country of origin. Although the constant switch of email/postcard and narration was a little hard to follow for me.
I wanted so much to like this book, and maybe once it's out in print I will give it another try, but for now I'm having to DNF it. Sorry Harlequin Teen and my apologies to the authors. Thank you so much for the chance to read Dear Haiti, Love Alaine.
Some books aren't for everyone, and that's ok! Just remember not to force yourself to read a book you aren't enjoying and that it is absolutely fine to DNF the book. On to the next read! Happy Reading!! 🤓

I had looked forward to reading this, but in the end I was very disappointed. There were problems with this novel from the very start and not just with the writing. The most noticeable was that this was evidently created as a print book and no thought whatsoever was given to the conversion to ebook. Submitting it in Amazon Kindle format was the first mistake. Amazon is renowned for trashing books when running them through its crappy kindle conversion process, and this one was a disaster. I've said this many times before and I will never tire of saying it until Amazon fixes it: unless your book is essentially plain vanilla, Amazon will trash it.

You can get away with bold fonts and italicized text, but the moment you start putting page headers in there, and drop caps, text box inserts, or any sort of special layout or formatting, and Amazon will destroy it, guaranteed. Never put images in it. Despite this being a given, no one evidently ever thinks to check if the resulting ebook is ready for Amazon Prime time. This one was not. I get that this was an advance review copy, but there is no excuse for the shoddy condition it was in. Evidently no one bothered to check it. This is on the authors and the publisher. I'm at the point now where I'm about ready to fail a book in review for something like this regardless of what else it has right or wrong about it, because I'm so very tired of seeing books in this condition having been mauled in the Amazon jungle.

It's not just a matter of the odd bit here and there having an issue. As writers, we all have to suck that up, but when a book is appallingly mashed-up by the conversion process (which is Amazon's forte as judged by the repeated problems with books I read in Kindle format), someone needs to check it and fix it before it goes out. Given that this was an ARC, there is plenty of time to fix it before it's published in September, but this is really no excuse for putting out a book for review that evidently hasn't even been so much as grammar- and spell-checked:

Here's an example: "...Twitter account I reserve for ratchetness and told them where they could shove keep their opinions." There is a spelling error and a grammatical error right there. Right after this there was a whole section turned red - that is to say a red font as opposed to black. I often see red sections in Kindle format books, usually in the end papers at the beginning - which would be the beginning papers, right? These things make me see red because there's no excuse for them. In this book though, there were random red paragraphs all over the book. I have no idea what it is in Amazon's evidently sloppy and substandard conversion process which causes these, but it would have taken only a cursory glance through the book to see that there was a serious quality problem.

Here's a grammar problem that was evidently caused by a sentence being written one way, changed to sound a little different, and then never re-read to make sure it made sense: "I said she could just show up and show out be herself." Say what? Whether this was caused or contributed to by the fact that this novel had two writers, I do not know. I have often thought it would be nice to have a co-writer, because in addition to spurring on your partner, each of you could catch the other's mistakes, but from the evidence here, it doesn't work that way!

Another example is "...they replavced her presentation with a chat about resolving disputes..." which ostensibly is an attempt to mash two words (repaved and replaced) into one! Inventive, but not good English! I rather suspect though that it was a typo, 'V' and 'C' being next-door-neighbors on the keyboard. This is why I believe a final spellcheck/grammar check was never done on this novel before it was submitted to Net Galley for us poor reviewers who merit only the ebook!

Following are a couple of examples of the poor formatting created by Kindle conversion process; in both of them, the page header and number has been meshed with the text of the novel:

The guests included the usual round
DEAR HAITI, LOVE ALAINE 21
table setup plus a congressperson or two.
This next one had both the header mesh and a red section:
"[pause]
BEAUPARLANT: Exactly. So, when the public hears rumors of expensive dinners at Zuma and court
DEAR HAITI, LOVE ALAINE 45
side Miami Heat seats on their dime..."
The portion beginning 'BEAUPARLANT' and ending with 'court' was all in blood red! And these were all in the first fifth of the novel.
When I got to around twenty percent, this red paragraph issue had become more than an aberration; it was so bad that I chose not to continue wrestling with a book that I wasn't even enjoying in the first place. I'm not a fan of experimental fiction and this felt like it. I'm not a fan of stories which are largely texting messages, or chat room exchanges or which incorporate large portions of such. I don't think it's edgy, I think it's tired and lazy writing. This book didn't go in for that so much as it went in for including the full text of emails, school event programs, transcripts, and that kind of thing. I quickly took to skipping these sections entirely and you know, it made no difference to my understanding of what was going on! So why include them? To me it's just lazy writing.

Because, I suspect, of these attempts to be cutting edge, the story became somewhat incoherent in places, and here I'm talking about what took place in the narrative flow of the text, not the parts where there were disruptive intrusions by emails and newspaper articles and so on. Skipping those parts actually made the story more coherent to me, but maybe that's just me.

The plot is about this one high-school girl, Alaine Beauparlant, a name which I thought was a bit much given she wants to be a journalist and her mother is a TV talk show host. Handsome-speaking? Really? Anyway, having been dissed in school by another girl in a very public way, Alaine reacts in kind, and gets punished for her misdemeanor while the other girl gets off scot-free. The other girl's behavior was without question outright bullying, yet she had no disciplinary action imposed on her while Alaine is suspended?! It's not authentic. Either that or Alaine attends a really, really bad school which didn't seem that way from what I read of it.

I never made it as far as Alaine's suspension. This was yet another novel set in a high-school where bullying is rampant and there is no accountability. I don't doubt that there is bullying in schools unfortunately, but reading about it in yet another YA story is getting very old, and it was only one of many tired tropes employed here. I'm also tired of stories where the girl needs to have the handsome beau, like no woman is sufficient on her own; she has to have her prince charming to validate her. This book could have done quite well without "Tati's distractingly cute intern." We need to have a #MeNeither movement to encourage writers to write about women who don't need men to get what they want out of life and get where they want to go. Maybe it should be tagged #MenOptional.

There was another disturbing issue here and this is a small spoiler, so be warned. Alaine's mother starts acting strangely very early in the story and this is apparently due to Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's usually hits late in life. Only about five percent of cases are early-onset, and sufferers don't typically become violent until late stage, and then only in extremis. While there is always room for aberrations, this story felt unrealistic in its approach to Alzheimer's, which didn't help its case with me. Just saying!

I wish the authors all the best with their career, but I could not get with, and cannot commend, this novel. It wasn't where it needed to be for my taste. If it had started with Alaine arriving in Haiti, cutting out all the high school BS that came before, it might have been be an improvement, but for me it wasn't working at all, and I chose to move on to something more engaging and more realistic.

A fantastic cover and vibrant, fun main character don't overcome the extreme all over the place story.

This book was unlike anything I have ever read.

This book is about a girl named Alaine (clearly) who lives in the US with her divorced Haitian immigrant parents. Her mother is a celebrated journalist who's sudden affliction causes a rift in Alaine's life. After a school project gone wrong, her father sends her off to Haiti where her mother and aunt live. Even though it's a punishment, she finds her two months long stay in Haiti something more than just content for her class project. She learns about her family and their history in Haiti. It's heartbreaking at times, but also uplifting in the way not only Alaine comes to understand the world around her, but also the people she loves most.

What I love about reading books like this is that I get to learn aspects and history I never knew about first hand from the author herself, through her characters. I love to be entertained and sometimes just need something to fill my time, but if I can learn a thing or two, that's a plus for me.

A few things that irked me: Although the formatting on the e-arc was a bit wonky, I did like how the book was told in emails, blog posts, etc. It was fun and kept my attention.. I also felt as though I needed more of Alaine and her mother as they navigated the curveball life had thrown at them. There were too many little things happening that it sort of took away from it.

I did enjoy reading this and gave an extra just for the cover alone.

I love that this book is written by sisters and I think it really shows throughout.
This YA novel is told in a epistolary format, which is one of my favorite styles! The book is comprised of correspondence, emails, texts, journal entries, and articles to tell the story. I think I may have been missing some images, but I don't doubt that they will be in the final version.
Our heroine, Alaine is cool, funny, and headstrong. After some drama that her Mom & Alaine get involved in they both retreat to their Mom's hometown in Haiti.
It was interesting to read about the culture of Haiti. I love books that include this in-depth cultural history.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the this ARC. I can't wait to see the final copy when it comes out in September

Nothing says a strong, heroine voice like Alaine. She's young, she's exceptional, and she's willing to do the impossible for those she loves. Her story made me laugh as much as it hurt, covering topics from poverty to Alzheimer's to racism, and I couldn't think of a better protagonist to share that story than Alaine. She's a troublemaker and she's smart, just like the other strong women throughout the novel. On top of all the heavy topics that this novel covers, we are also given insight into Haiti, from its highs and lows to its beauty and wreckage. Haiti is given life within this novel, and the country is as lively as its people and these characters. This book is a wonderful read for most ages, and absolutely difficult to put down. Jam-packed with cultural significance and coming of age, Alaine's story and lessons are not ones to miss out on.

First of all, I love that this book was written by sisters. Their author's note says a lot about their relationship, and it is clear that they enjoyed writing it together. Kudos on that!
I thoroughly enjoyed Alaine's story. Her voice is fresh and entertaining, a mix of serious, sarcastic, and humorous. I found the aspects of Haitian life and culture fascinating, as this is a part of the world I know little about. I appreciate that the authors did not ignore the disparities that exist in Haiti, such as that between wealth and poverty. The story kept me guessing until the end, which is always a plus. After taking awhile to get started, once I got into the story I found it difficult to put down. All in all, a great read.

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on April 18, 2019]

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine is a contemporary novel following a girl who is the daughter of divorced Haitian immigrants living in the US, and it's set both in the United States and in Haiti.

I am always looking for novels set outside the US, especially ones written by authors who have lived there or have ties with the country they're writing about, because American books, despite being read (translated and not) worldwide, always prioritize the white American perspective. Dear Haiti, Love Alaine was exactly what I wanted: it's a story about a girl who is the daughter of immigrants as she visits Haiti for the first time and meets the rest of her family, learns more about her family history, and also gets to know both Haiti and her mother more. This book shows Haiti as a place that isn't a stereotype, but a country with its own history, culture, flaws and good aspects.

What stood out to me about this book first was Alaine herself. I loved her narrative voice, the way she uses humor to connect with people and to protect herself at the same time, and I could feel her passion for journalism. And she grows so much during this novel!
I also really liked reading about her relationship with her mother, who has been distant for most of Alaine's life, and who has now been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. The way Alaine tries to deal with that felt very realistic to me, and it was heartbreaking at times.

My feelings on the mixed media format are less positive. On one hand, I loved that this was told through diary entries, parts of school projects, tweets, blog posts and emails. On the other hand, the poor formatting of the eARC meant that at times these were either unreadable or missing.

Another thing that didn't work for me as much as I hoped was the plot. I would have loved this book more had it focused mostly on Alaine and her mother's relationship, but it didn't - there are a lot of side and minor characters (so many that "who is that again" is a reaction I had multiple times during this book) and a lot of side plots, involving embezzlement, a maybe-romance, and a family curse. I also felt that some characters that were relevant in the first half of the novel were barely there in the second, like Alaine's dad (and I liked reading about him), or Alaine's friend, who completely disappears.

Overall, I do recommend this, but I think it's the kind of novel that works better in physical form.

I loved this book. Smart. Refreshing. New. Alaine, the main character, is intelligent and witty. A role model for many girls today. Sure, she deals with an embarrassing and televised incident, but, she gets through it with style and grace.

Disclaimer: I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maika Moulite and Martiza Moulite is a welcome addition to YA.

Told through a series of journal entries, emails, tweets, letters, and texts, this is a uniquely told story. Alaine Beauparlant is a first-generation Haitian-American. She attends a fancy private school with unique classes, and for a class assignment, she picks Haiti and must give the background of several key people in Haiti’s fight for freedom. However, she decides to treat this assignment as a bit of a joke, something that her teacher calls her on. After her news anchor mother has a buzzworthy incident on camera, Alaine faces a bit of bullying from one of her classmates, and she decides to get revenge with the project’s help.

Ultimately, this gets her booted temporarily from her private school, and her father sends her off to Haiti with her aunt and her mother who is privately dealing with the fallout from the news incident.

Once in Haiti, Alaine begins to find out more about her heritage. At this point, Alaine’s voice shifts, and we no longer hear the sardonic wit from Alaine. While this is an understandable character shift resulting from what she deals with at this time, I was still disappointed, and I became less engaged in the story.

Overall, however, this is very well told, and the style of story-telling works very well.

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine releases September 3.

The idea of the story was super exciting and I was so looking forward to this YA. Unfortunately I didn’t like it as much as I thought I was going to. At first I was contributing it to the format of the kindle arc because it was missing chunks of sentences and letters and I had to piece together some parts. But I think it was the story itself that was chunky and put together. It didn’t flow well. I have a love/hate relationship with Alaine and her family. Her snarkiness and rebellion seemed so very in character and she was hilarious, but at times obsessively written. Another pet peeve was how Alaine interacted with her peers and teachers. I get that she is a strong female main character but for a 17 year old with such high profile mom and a pretty in-tune dad I would have expected a bit more respectfulness. Also the adults could have been a bit more hashed out and more developed since they were a big part of Alaine’ s story. The female monarchs of her family were very immature whereas Alaine’s father was the only one who acted like an adult.

The plot itself seemed to turn completely in the middle and the ending was very strange and fast. At first it seemed it was concentrating on Alaine learning more about Haiti’s history and rebellion for a school assignment. All of a sudden it flipped and it was about this family curse and there is a death that is completely passed over and unaddressed. Then the ending is wrapped up and a bow thrown on haphazardly. Not my favorite.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC for this honest review.

Alaina is a snarky teenager coming to terms with her mom’s early onset Alzheimer’s, dealing with being privileged in Miami/Haiti, and what that means; and her complicated feelings about voodoo and her family’s history.

It felt a little clunky sometimes, but I think that was mostly bc of the formatting. It was honestly the worst digital arc I’d ever seen. Whole sentences on the wrong page, and lots of sentence fragments floating around.

Let’s start with the good stuff! The representation was really good with the Alzheimer’s story and everything Haitian. But it just dragged on. There were a lot of times where I was just reading assignments that were given to Alaine that I didn’t really care for and didn’t add to the story, and then there was times where we would be reading emails Alaine would send and receive. It was redundant.
When she was finally in Haiti I would have thought she would go explore and find information on her own but, like, letters were given to her explaining her family history and things written in her mother’s diary.
The only reason she went to Haiti was because she messed up her assignment so they were giving her another chance to turn in a better one but it’s never really mentioned after she gets there, and then in the end it’s addressed to her teacher who gave her a failing grade on the original assignment. I understand the main point of this was to see her family secrets but the book spent a lot of time talking about the assignment in the beginning. I didn’t think a curse storyline would come up but it did and I just feel like that was kind of lazy. And her trusting someone who her parents and relatives don’t even trust? She’s smarter than that.

All in all, the message the ending sends is lovely. Just to spend time with someone how they are, and not trying to change something that can’t be changed. It just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Harlequin Teen and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. Review previously posted on Goodreads.

I was drawn to this book by its gorgeous cover and intriguing description, and it did not disappoint! I always enjoy novels that play with epistolary format or other forms of writing outside of straight prose, so I liked the authors' use of texts, school assignments, etc, mixed in with the narrative. I loved the vivid sense of place in this story as well and think it depicts Haiti so beautifully in a way not often found in popular literature. I hope for more from these authors!

I love the premise of Dear Haiti, Love Alaine. Representation matters in YA, and protagonist Alaine is a strong leading lady. I loved the themes of family and culture in this book. The mixed media narrative format made things a tad difficult to engage with at times.

I like this authors debut novel! It has such a unique premise that I had to give it a go. I found the Haitian culture so fascinating!
Alain’s character was super funny and witty. The way she talks about “adulting” was super great! I enjoyed the teen voices in this book too! Their voices really made the story relatable.
I had a hard time following the text in this arc and I wasn’t crazy about all of the articles and add ins but it was a good story. I hope to read more from this author.