Hold Tight Don't Let Go: A Novel of Haiti

Reviewed by: Kristin Taylor - Biddeford High School, Biddeford, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: July 7, 2015

Review

January 2010, the day the earthquake Haiti was the day that changed Magda's life -- the only life she had known. Magda lost her home and her mother that day and the events that followed only seemed to get worse. Living in a tent city with her uncle and cousin, Nadine, was like living in hell -- barely enough to eat and to sleep with only a tarp roof over her head. Then her cousin's father, who lives in Miami, was able to get a visa for Nadine leaving Magda alone and feeling unwanted. All she wants to do is make enough money to go to school and to get out of Haiti.

Laura Rose Wagner has done an excellent job in portraying the life of the poor in Haiti after the earthquake; it is a "vivid love letter to a torn country, and a tribute to the connections that are destroyed by disaster and the connections that are formed in disaster's wake." At the end of the book is a brief history of Haiti which explains how Haiti has become the poor country that the world knows. A must read!

Overall Book Score: excellent