Book Title: The Silence Between Us
Author: Alison Gervais
Purchase: Amazon
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Description from Goodreads:

Deaf teen Maya moves across the country and must attend a hearing school for the first time. As if that wasn’t hard enough, she also has to adjust to the hearing culture, which she finds frustrating—and also surprising when some classmates, including Beau Watson, take time to learn ASL. As Maya looks past graduation and focuses on her future dreams, nothing, not even an unexpected romance, will not derail her pursuits. But when people in her life—Deaf and hearing alike—ask her to question parts of her Deaf identity, Maya stands proudly, never giving in to the idea that her Deafness is a disadvantage.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars 

The main character, Maya, previously attended a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, and has to transition into a hearing school. She is understandably apprehensive at first — none of the students have had a deaf classmate, so she has to adapt and ends up building close relationships with some of the students. But that’s not to say it isn’t a struggle at first. Students make ignorant comments to her, and teachers ignore her at times. While all that’s happening, she tries to do well in school to get into her dream college. There is more to Maya’s story than starting at a new school, though. Her younger brother has cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system. He is in and out of the hospital, and her family has to deal with the stressful financial burden this places on the household.

I have never read a book about deaf culture, so this was definitely an eye-opener. I’ve seen people sign before, but for some reason, it never truly registered to me that it was a different language. In the book, you read how sign language translates into English. It felt choppy at first (the translation doesn’t include verbs or words like “to” or “the”), but I ended up getting used to it. The author writes so that you experience what Maya does when reading lips, so the reader misses some words when people are talking. This allowed me to empathize with how difficult Maya’s situation can be and also showed it’s possible to sometimes just fill in the gaps.

During school, Maya has a translator with her and many people look at the translator when talking instead of at Maya, the person they are actually talking to. This makes her feel unacknowledged and angry. In other situations, people talk louder after finding out she’s deaf (even though she still can’t hear them!). The book taught me how unaware society is of deaf culture and how I can help accommodate those who are deaf moving forward. Seeing Maya face these situations and get frustrated made me frustrated for her!

Maya was a fun character to get to know. She is a bit of an angsty teenager, but at that age, who isn’t? At first, she doesn’t want to go to a new school, but after awhile she opens up and starts saying yes to new experiences. She becomes friends with “Hearing” people, even though she thought there was no chance of that happening.

I love how close she is with her brother and how much she cares about her mother. She sees the stress her mom is under from her brother’s medical situation and wants to help out by getting a job (though that results in new challenges). Maya’s plot is primarily focused on doing well at school, but I wish we saw her have some other outside interests or saw more of personality outside of being a student.

The relationship between Maya and Beau is super cute, and I enjoyed watching it unfold. Beau takes the time to learn ESL and get to know Maya as a person. He’s persistent, even though in the beginning she repeatedly rejects him. For high schoolers, I felt like they opened up a lot to each other and delved into deep topics. Beau even helps out during an incredibly difficult time in the hospital with Maya’s brother. They just seem to understand each other and provide support during a tumultuous time.

Maya has a different life than most, but at the same time, she goes through some universal challenges. This book is a good reminder that just because someone experiences the world differently than you do, it doesn’t mean they are really that different. Everyone wants to be understood, respected, and treated with dignity. Everyone has dreams for themselves and hope for the future.