Rating: 4 out of 5

I’d been saving this to read on my holiday, and I’ve just finished it. It follows a few characters over a few months, including the headmistress and some of her students.

The book captures both the everyday moments of school life and some of the real challenges students face. We spend a lot of time with Charlie, a student whose family chose a cochlear implant for her and never taught her to sign. You see her dad trying to learn sign language and her mum still hoping the implant will work. We also follow the headmistress as she loses her Deaf mother to dementia and struggles to process some terrible news about the school, making a few poor decisions along the way.

I felt like there were almost too many threads in the story, and they didn’t get tied up neatly at the end. I guess that’s how life can be sometimes.

What I found really interesting was how the book is woven with facts about the Deaf community. These are like little mini-lessons, with bits of information and ASL guidance that are tied to what Charlie is learning. It felt so well-integrated and added a lot to the story without feeling forced.

I’m not sure the book will stick with me. I found it hard to connect with the characters, and it wasn’t one of those books that made me want to stay up late to find out what happened. I’m a little disappointed.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account