The titular Alaine, a first generation Haitian-American living in Miami, had never been to the homeland before being extra at school one too many times nearly got her expelled and packed off to stay with family in Cap Haitïen and intern at her Tati Estelle's nonprofit, PATRON PAL. Alaine Beauparlant is a raucous kid to begin with, but living with her doctor dad and playing second fiddle (or maybe third or fourth) to her mom's high profile journalist career may cause Alaine to act out more than is strictly necessary. That's my interpretation, anyway. When a bad thing happens to her mom, Alaine gets to spend more time with the famous Celeste Beauparlant. Secrets are revealed and mistakes are made. There's a romance that is mostly on the side, and that I could have done without, but I guess that's what makes YA YA.

I love that the book was written by sisters, one who majored in marketing and earned an MBA and the other, who was a women's studies major and has a master's in journalism. I'm curious about their writing process! And also about the fact that the MBA holder is the one with a bald head.

Alaine's naughty behavior at school, including a tongue-in-cheek telling of the Haitian Revolution reminds me of a snarky response to a chemistry test I was convinced I should use as my college application essay. Ah, privileged, know-it-all youth.

Alaine comes by her snarky communications generationally. He's an excerpt from her mother's high school diary

When I was young enough to still love [my father, Haiti's Minister of Communication], I'd watch as he would lean back in his chair and spin food shortages and riots into "slight agricultural setbacks" and "passionate gatherings." No one in the country believed a word that came out of his office, but he kept the press releases coming, convinced that his time to lead would come soon.

Alaine wants to be a journalist like her mother. Minister of Communications might seem like the opposite of journalism, but it's still writing.

Celeste takes apart a pundit's weirdo claim about the 2010 earthquake being somehow the result of voodoo, "So the countries behind hideous atrocities like colonizing occupied lands and raping and murdering their inhabitants and enslaving millions of people...what has been their retribution?" But that doesn't mean Dear Haiti is without vodou, that is painfully retributive.

Alaine (and the Moulite sisters) share some fun (the opposite of fun) facts about Haitian tourism, which Alaine's aunt Estelle is minister of: Haiti earns just $9 per cruise ship visitor to Labadie, its luxury beach, where tourists come to enjoy the white sand, and do not venture beyond the artificial environment created for them. The real Haiti is a more honest place, as Alaine notes about an exchange between her father Jules, and his childhood friend.

"Well if it isn't Ti Blanc!" he said, referring to my dad as a "white man" the way Haitians routinely did expats or their children.

"Daniel. You have a beautiful family. How are you?" they clapped each other forcefully on the back."

"Not bad. Hungry--but what's new?" I always found it fascinating that Haitians were more likely to tell you the truth about their conditions. No "I'm fine" here, not when the children were so plainly thin."

Despite being about "the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere," as Haiti is repeatedly referred to, to the Beauparlant women's annoyance, Dear Haiti does lightness as well as handles its heavier material.

First off, the cover is STUNNING! 100% why I immediately one-clicked this on Netgalley without even reading the description, and I’m so happy I did! Alaine was a fabulous narrator and I just adored her voice throughout the novel. So snarky and entertaining! I’ve never read much about Haiti aside from high school history classes, so I really enjoyed that aspect of the novel—immersing myself in a new culture and learning more about it. I definitely recommended for fans of YA contemporaries!

**Thanks to Netgalley for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I first need to mention that I read an earc of this book.  The formatting was messed up which made it harder to read.  It's possible that I would have gone up a half star, but I found myself lost during quite a few different parts of the book.  It's also a story told through letters, e-mails, social media, diary type entries, and more.  My arc didn't have chapters, so I'm not sure if the book will.  Hopefully, because I feel it will be easier to follow.



I mostly requested this book because it takes place in Haiti.  I always try to find books to read that will help me see the culture and beauty of another country.  My favorite parts of this book were the stories, scenery, and the curse/vodou stories.  I really wanted to connect with the characters in the book, but I struggled with this part.  Alaine was fun.  I liked that she was funny and sarcastic.  Her project for school made me laugh.  I would have loved more from her best friend, Tatiana.  I did like Jason and wish we would have had more of his interactions with Alaine.



This book mostly focused on family.  Alaine grew up with her dad.  Her mom was a political reporter with her own popular show on TV.  Because her mom was always busy, she often times flaked out on doing things with or for Alaine.  Alaine's mom is everything she wants to be though.  A strong journalist that never falters during her interviews and stories.  That is until she slaps a senator on live TV.  Alaine's mom leaves and goes back home to Haiti, the place she said she'd never return to.  After Alaine's issues at school, she is also sent there to do special work at her aunt's program to help poor children.  Alaine finds out that her mom has very early onset Alzheimer's.  This is shocking and terrifying to Alaine.  She spends time trying to understand her mom's disease, do her work, and learn about her history.  Her aunt gives Alaine her mom's old diaries and Alaine learns of a curse and what four teens did to try to break it.  She gets it into her head that maybe she can break it and her mom will get better.



I enjoyed some parts of the story, but I also found it hard to pick up at times.  Because of that, I gave this 3  1/2 stars (rounded up to 4).  Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my review copy.



Warnings for abuse, attempted sexual assault, miscarriage, Alzheimer's, death, curses, voudu, and some very shady business/political dealings.

(Thanks to NetGalley, which kindly provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review.)
Dear Haiti, Love Alaine, the debut novel by Haitian-American authors Maika and Maritza Moulite, chronicles the adventures of sassy, wisecracking Haitian-American protagonist, Alaine Beauparlant. A high school senior and daughter of divorced immigrant parents, Alaine returns to her ancestral homeland of Haiti for a senior service project, joining her mother, famous social and political affairs commentator Celeste, who has retreated to the island following a disastrous professional incident. On the island, Alaine begins interning for a charitable non-profit, finds romance, and uncovers a plethora of family secrets. The novel is epistolary with magical realism elements, and unfolds via a series of texts, emails, and narrative diary entries peppered with pop culture references, giving the book a decidedly contemporary feel. The aforementioned style, however, also arguably creates some fragmentation in the story’s narrative arc, an issue further exacerbated by an error-riddled ARC—several places in the manuscript had omitted passages. Quibbles aside, Dear Haiti, Love Alaine is both entertaining, as well as thought-provoking, providing a lens into Haitian history and culture and addressing the complexities inherent in navigating family and teen relationships.

Goodreads review URL: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2872093233

This was one of my most highly anticipated books this year. I don't know if it was because this novel has two writers but I found that Dear Haiti, Love Alaine was not quite sure what type of book it wanted to be at times. And there were so many different angles it tried to take. Was it a coming of age book about a teen girl who embraces her West Indian heritage and has a romance with a college boy? The parts of the novel featuring Alaine working with cute intern Jason as her aunt's startup certainly felt that way. Was it an adventure novel about breaking a family curse? Because some of those allusions to blood magic felt like a segway into a fantasy adventure. Though you can't mention Haiti without mentioning vodou. Were they trying to tell a story about about coping with family hardship through the plot with Alaine's mother?

I learned a lot about Haiti from this book. I already have had a bit of a fascination with Haiti culture this year but this just solidified it. It was nice to read about it from a perspective not told by the media. Yes, we know Haiti is poor but there's so much more to the island. Alaine's family on her mother's side is very prominent in the country so they give us a look into the wealthy side of Haitian society. This book also brought into perspective the positive and negatives effects of American aid.

My least favorite part of this novel was the mixed media (social media chats, newspaper articles, emails, letters, postcards,etc) that took me right out of the story each time. Especially since in the ARC they are formatted horribly to the point where you'll be reading one line before it skips to another paragraph and then you find the rest of your sentence after that paragraph. The tone was just different in those parts too.

I rate this book a 3.5. It wasn't perfect and was a little slow in the middle but it picked up at the end and there were many parts I did enjoy.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

While I did enjoy this book, I didn't love it like I wanted to. I did like Alaine and reading about her relationship with her parents, especially her mother. I also loved getting a look at the culture and history of Haiti.

The writing was good but I was a bit thrown off by the multiple formats that we get here. Speaking of being thrown off, the generational curses was a weird touch as well.

All in all, I did enjoy this one despite some issues and I'm excited to see what these two sisters write next.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin TEEN and Inkyard Press for the advance reader copy of Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by debut authors and sisters, Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite. Teens will love this action-packed story, narrated by fearless, sassy Alaine, daughter of a psychiatrist and a famous talk show host mom, who finds herself punished for a school joke by being sent to her parents’ home of Haiti. There was so much to love about this story; the rich past and present history of Haiti, a family curse, strong female characters, and a plot that includes lists, emails, letters, transcripts. This is such a diverse, authentic, multi-faceted book with rich storytelling by the Moulite sisters; I loved the cover, Alaine, her aunts, the beauty and poverty of Haiti and all who work tirelessly for Haiti’s survival. Highly recommended!

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine weaves multiple issues of class, identity, and culture in a highly engaging story. Readers will like the multi-faceted format of narrative, emails, and texts that bring depth to the story. This book is perfect for diaspora readers who can relate to the experience of learning about one’s culture. Highly recommend.

I requested to review Dear Haiti, Love, Alaine because I've been to Haiti a few times, and I was interested in a story written by native Haitians and set in Haiti.

The format of the book is interesting. The story is told in the form of journal entries, Twitter chats, emails, news reports, etc. But all of the different "writers" sounded the same. The teacher's email and news report sounded the same a Alaine's diary entries.

A bigger problem was formatting. The font color, size and spacing were confusing. Sometimes entire sentences either appeared out of order, or perhaps they were supposed to have been deleted, but weren't. I'm assuming the formatting problems were because I was reading a prepublished electronic version.

Once Alaine moved to Haiti, the story became more interesting, but also more sloppy. It reminded me of a soap opera - shy on detail and character development, but full of drama. (Spoiler alert) when they suffered a terrible shipwreck, for example, they had watched the sun set on deck but after the wreck, a character's death was called at 17:32 (5:32pm). The flow of the story was a bit random.

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.  #DearHaitiLoveAlaine #NetGalley

Thank you to Harlequin TEEN (US & Canada), Inkyard Press, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine follows Alaine, a witty, amibitious, hyperbolic 17-year-old who wants to be an award-winning journalist, just like her mother. Alaine's parents immigrated to the states from Haiti and when Alaine gets into trouble at school, she's sent there to intern at her aunt's non-profit PATRON-PAL, while meeting her extended family and learning more about the country's history.

A large part of the story revolves around Alaine's relationship with her mother who she both idolizes and resents. Her father Jules, a pamphlet-slipping psychologist and anxious baker, is a gentle, dorky-dad type character who really shines. Alaine's relationship with her parents was one of the highlights of the story for me.

I enjoyed learning about Haiti and getting a feel for its culture and history. It was interesting to read about the disparity between rich and poor and how the outside perspective of the country differs from that of its inhabitants. The book was co-written by sisters Maika and Maritza Moulite, but you'd never know as the two blend their voices imperceptibly and the flow is cohesive.

What made the story unique was that it was told through different different elements, such as emails, project assignments, postcards, etc. But formatting mistakes on the e-ARC made it difficult to follow along and kept me from feeling fully immersed in the story. I wish the family curse and Celeste and Estelle's relationship had been fleshed out more, as the relationships were really what this book was about for me.

I absolutely LOVE, LOVE this book! Set both in the United States and in Haiti. Haitian-American teen, Alaine Beauparlant lives with her dad in Miami and her mom is a host of the roundtable debate show, Sunday Politicos.⁣⁣

One day Alaine’s life is flipped upside down after a prank in school goes horrible wrong and her mom has a meltdown on national television. Alaine and her mom head to Haiti to basically get their minds right. While Alaine is trying to adjust to life in Haiti, she uncovers some family secrets about her mom. The writing styles is seamless, filled with so much Haitian Pride, the culture and history! Representation is EVERYTHING!

I laughed and cried, this was such a great read! An absolute must read! 5 out of 5 stars. Thank you, Netgalley & Harper Collins/Inkyard Press for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

First off, what drew me in was the cover, I am a huge fan of illustrated covers. This one definitely stands out. Dear Haiti, Love Alaine is a sweet story about a girl growing up the child of immigrants and how she is navigating her life between America and Haiti and being sent to Haiti opens her eyes to a whole new world.

Story wise the book is great but how it is written and told, is another matter all together. It is told is epistolary format, meaning it is comprised of emails, journal entries, texts and articles to the story. And it would be my first book where the entire thing is told that way, save a few chapters. This made it very hard for me to connect and honestly read, as it is a bit confusing at first. I think it really stood out when told in real time. There wasn't enough in my opinion. During that time Alaine is funny and real.

I do recommend this book for anyone who doesn't mind the format. It does discussion things that should be spoken about more often than not.

Thank you to Netgalley, the Publisher and Authors for gifting me the eARC in turn for my honest review.

I saw this book and immediately fell in love with the cover, because well it’s gorgeous. And while you should never judge a book by its cover I feel that in this case the book is as good as the cover.

The novel centers around the main character Alaine, who seems to be a very self-aware teenager who attends school. Both Alaine’s parents are from Haiti, but they are divorced and she lives with her Dad. Alaine’s mom is an on air reporter and makes a huge mistake slapping a senator on TV, cringe. At the same time Alaine also gets in a little hot water in school, almost getting expelled and both women are shipped to Haiti to take a little time out. Since Alaine is suspended she must go to school in Haiti to make up the credits.

I’ve never read a book that was written through a series of emails, tweets, texts, letters and journal entries but I really loved it.

I also loved the fact that the book also looked at so many aspects of Haiti including immigration, poverty and colonialism that has plagued the people for centuries. I don’t know a lot about Haiti and this prompted me to learn more. Such a great book!

There’s a lot going on in Dear Haiti, Love Alaine! There may be too much plot, going in different directions, almost to confusion for the reader. The story is told through diary entries, text messages, emails, news articles, and narration, which was too abrupt for me as a reader because there were so much plot happening. A flow, segue, or connection would’ve helped. With that being said I enjoyed the family relationships and the setting of Haiti. Having the story set in Haiti, along with some history, is much needed for a diverse novel.

The cover drew me to the book--because the cover is GORGEOUS--but the story is good as well; that said, the multimedia format used within (via the inclusion of text exchanges, emails, letters, news reports, etc.) made it confusing to read in electronic form and often took away from what was, on its on, an important story about family connections being lost and found.

I wasn't particularly interested in the use of a family curse as the means through which Alaine attempts to reconnect with her estranged mother. It was convoluted and, at times, confusing;while I can understand why the Moulite sisters chose to use it as a plot device, it wasn't necessary and took away from Alaine's voice--which, to be honest, was the best part of the book.

Alaine is the only child of immigrant parents. Her mother is a famous journalist and her father is a well-respected therapist within the Miami community. Her parents are long-divorced but have found a way--or so they believe--to successfully co-parent their only child. However, after an embarrassing incident at Alaine's prep school puts her at-risk of derailing her academic career, they decide to send her to Haiti--hoping she'll get her act together and find some humility in the process.

The story is at its best when things are happening in real-time: Alaine's voice is refreshing, funny, and real. Her observations of the world, as well as those who inhabit her tiny section of it, are where this story shines most.

I only wish there had been more of that within these pages; so much time (too much in my opinion) is spent attempting to tell the story via use of other media/detailing the history of the aforementioned curse.

Alaine's voice is the star of this story but in giving it a backseat to the above elements--elements which, in many ways, made little sense and, ultimately, didn't feel as necessary--took away from my ability to truly enjoy the voice of this amazing character .

Perhaps that will be an issue with just me but it definitely influenced my decision to give it a lower rating than I otherwise might have.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and hope to see more work from the Moulite sisters.

I love Alaine! She gets sent to Haiti after an unfortunate school presentation. While there she volunteers at her Aunt's non-profit. We follow Elaine as she navigates life, bonds with her Mother, and deal with old family curses. Alaine is smart, funny, and feisty. She is great character. I love the epistolary style of this book. Great debut!

Thanks Netgalley and publishers for this book I was so so so excited to get This Arc I been wanting to read this book since I first saw it! This book was very good I loved it it teaches you about another culture and it has romance in there also and it is just good and I feel like everyone should read it Teen and older people

I wanted to love this book, and maybe it was due to the editing, but it didn’t do it for me. The story was hard to follow and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience for me.

This story is at once an exploration of identity, a swoony romance, and an homage to diversity. With realistic characters, vivid writing, and intimate storytelling, this book will grip you.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 



Author: Maika and Maritza Moulite

Release Date: September 3, 2019

SUMMARY:

When a school presentation goes very wrong, Alaine Beauparlant finds herself suspended, shipped off to Haiti and writing the report of a lifetime…

You might ask the obvious question: What do I, a seventeen-year-old Haitian American from Miami with way too little life experience, have to say about anything?

Actually, a lot.

Thanks to “the incident” (don’t ask), I'm spending the next two months doing what my school is calling a "spring volunteer immersion project.” It’s definitely no vacation. I’m toiling away under the ever-watchful eyes of Tati Estelle at her new nonprofit. And my lean-in queen of a mother is even here to make sure I do things right. Or she might just be lying low to dodge the media sharks after a much more public incident of her own…and to hide a rather devastating secret.

All things considered, there are some pretty nice perks…like flirting with Tati’s distractingly cute intern, getting actual face time with my mom and experiencing Haiti for the first time. I’m even exploring my family’s history—which happens to be loaded with betrayals, superstitions and possibly even a family curse.

You know, typical drama. But it's nothing I can't handle.

REVIEW:

Well, this was a mixed bag...let's break it down in bullet points. 

WHAT I LIKED 

The Alzheimer's subplot (spoiler alert: Alaine's mom is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's). I've never read a YA book that deals with Alzheimer's before, and I think "Dear Haiti, Love Alaine" did a great job of showing how devastating it can be both for the patients and for their loved ones. Great take on a rarely-covered but very prevalent real-life issue. 
Alaine's voice. Though she often came off as really entitled and reckless, she was written with a wicked sense of humor and a lot of intelligence, and I liked the way she narrated her story. 
The glimpse into Haitian culture and class structures. "Dear Haiti..." went to great pains to show multiple facets of Haitian society, and to point out the extreme divide between Haiti's upper and lower classes. We get glimpses of both privilege and poverty, and the characters who fall into the "privileged" category (mostly) show an admirable desire to bridge the gap between classes. The story also presents Haitian worldviews and customs (the best example of this is the "family curse" subplot) in a way that left me feeling like I'd learned a lot about the culture. 
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE 

The busy-ness of the plot. There were sooooo may subplots, and I didn't dislike any of them, but there were just way too many of them. From the family curse to the Alzheimer's diagnosis and the romance (more on that later) and everything else, trying to follow all of the plot threads left me mentally out of breath. 
The romance seemed super rushed. There was almost no explanation of it: Alaine's aunt tries to set her up with a guy, and she is vehemently opposed to this. Then, she meets said guy, and boom! Love. I was a little confused - "where did that come from?" was all I could think. It was cute, but came out of absolutely nowhere; it didn't really feel earned. 
I liked Alaine's voice, but her personality grated on me. A lot. She seemed so entitled. In a lot of cases Alaine acted like she expected to be allowed to do whatever she wanted without consequence. (Case in point: the school project that initially gets her sent to Haiti.) She was very self-centered and not particularly mature, and although she grows during her time in Haiti, she never loses that above-the-law attitude. I know a lot of people like it when people show that kind of assertiveness, so they'll probably like Alaine, but it drives me nuts. (To be fair, a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that she uses humor/snark/acts out to cope with grief.) Alaine's mom had a lot of the same personality traits, but she didn't get as much page time, so it wasn't as bothersome.
RATING: 

Plot: 4/5. The story was fascinating, but at times, there was a bit too much going on. There were a LOT of subplots and none of them were ostensibly weak or boring, but there were just so many of them.

Characters: 5/5. The characters' relationship dynamics were really the beating heart of the story. Not all of them were entirely likable, but their motivations were fleshed out enough to make that lack of likability understandable.

Pacing: 3/5. Slow in parts; some of it was really redundant and in other parts, there was simply too much happening at once.

Handling of Subject Matter: 5/5. The plotline involving Alaine's mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's (what a lot of apostrophes) was handled well and Haitian culture is lovingly and respectfully incorporated into almost every element of the story. 

Writing Style: 3/5 - I probably shouldn't take points off of this category for the formatting of an ARC because it probably won't stay like that in the actual publication version, but the format was so incredibly incoherent that it was difficult to read. The writing itself was nice, but I couldn't get past the formatting issues. 

Content: 4/5 - generally pretty clean save for a smattering of strong language. Also, Alaine makes some choices that I should hope most teenagers would not want to emulate.

Overall: 4.00/5