Book Blurb:
True Biz by Sara Nović: The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history final, and have doctors, politicians, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another–and changed forever. This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, cochlear implants and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.
My Review: 4 stars
True Biz by Sara Nović is fascinating stand out book about the deaf community that incorporates feelings of being different, being included, fighting the system, bettering the system, and normalizing the stigmatism of deafness. This author shows great range in her writing. I loved her last book, Girl at War, which is entirely different than this one.
There was a lot to like about this book, most importantly the awareness it brought to the non-deaf community. Through a well-paced plot and good old-fashioned storytelling, I learned so much about the struggles that this community is faced with. I had no idea about the problems with cochlear implants or the immensely varied instructions parents are given when raising a deaf child. It burned me to the core that parents wouldn’t learn ASL or have it taught to their deaf child. It broke my heart to see that even in a school for the deaf, there is still bullying and cliques. However, by exploring this, Nović shows us how similar we all are and that hearing or not, we all deal with the same nonsense of adolescence.
Because this takes place at a school, I thought the sections the author devoted to teaching the reader some ASL, information about deaf education and other interesting facts were warranted and welcome. With so much going on with the kids, I didn’t feel like the storyline with February and “other woman” was necessary.
When the book ended, I continued to think about the characters and wished them well. There are so many talking points for book clubs – it’ll be a doozy!
Quotes I liked:
Being motherless was different than being fatherless. It was primal, the archetype for human suffering, like losing the North Star.”
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