Parachutes by Kelly Yang is a thought-provoking and inspiring book about determination and how using your voice even with setbacks, means more to others than staying silent. This book is about Dani and Claire. Claire is a Chinese teenager who her parents sent to the states to go to a better school and Dani is her housemate, a young girl who has the ambition to make it to a college competition for her debate team. As they face challenges, the two girls realize that while they may come from different backgrounds, they are similar. I read this book because it was my school book club book of the month.
This book was beautiful. I normally don’t read books like this but reading this makes me want to read more from this author. It’s the type of book you’re happy it doesn’t end perfectly and even amid all the topics of sexual assault, the author found ways to make sure the reader knew the different ways one can handle such a hard topic. This author did everything beautifully, my only issue with the book is the length, the last hundred pages were amazing and now I know that everything leading up to it was very much needed but I wish things were cleaned up a bit better in the middle. I give this book a four out of five stars because the only main issue I had with it was the length. I do think from this book I want to check out more of what the author has to offer, I would recommend this book to others because it got me out of my reading slump and it opened my world up to more books I didn’t originally think I’d like.