Review: "The Silence Between Us" by Alison Gervais

I've always been fascinated by d/Deaf culture, nurtured by my family's use of baby sign and our obsession with Signing Time when I was younger. (I actually got to meet Rachel Coleman once. Long, and very entertaining story.) So I was really thrilled to find this book, which is about a girl in the d/Deaf community who has to begin attending a mainstream school. My only worry was that it wouldn't live up to my expectations--but it definitely did! 

Worldbuilding/Writing Style

Of course, this was a contemporary novel, so not so much "worldbuilding", per se, but I thought her portrayal of high school was fairly realistic (in my copious experience, haha!). I've done a fair amount of (non-fiction) reading about the d/Deaf community, and I thought it was a really good representation of that as well! I really appreciated how she left the ASL parts in the syntax that would be used in ASL, how she showed that lip reading is not always very accurate, and how the main character was able to talk, which is something not all d/Deaf people can do, but not all d/Deaf people CAN'T do, either. 

Plot

I thought the plot was very well done--it was not a typical romance-based YA plot, which I LOVED (no, the love interest does not come in and FIX EVERYTHING), and it really portrays the every day quite well. That's not to say that there aren't big events, but it's senior year of high school, and they're the normal big events. But none of it was boring! I like how there was a small friend group, and especially that it was two girls and a boy--the two-boys-and-a-girl trio is monstrously overdone. The friendships are allowed to develop fairly organically, although not everything that perhaps should have been shown in the friendships was shown. In minor notes, I really appreciated Gervais not using the "the-girl-who-is-showing-you-around-the-school-is-evil" OR the "the-girl-who-is-showing-you-around-the-school-is-bored/boring" tropes! Also, I thought the characters acted their age, which was nice. There were a few things that were a tad subtle and I'm a bit confused as to either where they came from or why they weren't shown more, and some of the character arc was a taaaad choppy, but overall a very well written plot. 

Characters

Maya: Maya was one of the rare characters I can really slip into, so much so that I almost forgot her name several times! I really liked her spunk and I thought she was very 3-D. I also appreciated how she liked being d/Deaf.

Nina: Nina was really nice, and reminded me of me a little, but I did think she was a tad flat. 

Beau: Is a lovely friend as well as love interest, and such a sweet boy. His character seemed very realistic, and his arc was relevant. :)

Romance

I thought the romance was well done, and drawn with a light hand. I appreciated, as I said above, that it was not a major part of the plot. 

Content

A couple of kisses

Overall Rating

4 stars! I really enjoyed this one.

Reminded me of...

Braced by Alyson Gerber (although that one is MG and not about the d/Deaf community)

Have you read this one? Any other books with d/Deaf representation that you'd recommend? Any other Signing Time 'graduates' here? :)