True biz? 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.

I think this is a book long due giving voice to the Deaf community. It was an eye-opener and perspective shifter for me. I was joking that it was giving me Harry Potter vibes in the beginning. There is Charlie, a high school girl who transfers from a mainstream school to a boarding school for the Deaf. A completely different and magical world appears to her full of opportunities and hope. There are third generation Deaf kids who are more privileged in this community than kids of hearing parents (Harry Potter, see?). I learnt so much about Deaf history and ASL. We now look at eugenics as a crazy pseudoscence, but we still try to make the Deaf hearing. Should not we think of more human ways to include them in our society?

Giving this book to the next reader of the Tbilisi - Wine, Women and Wit Book Club.

It was so interesting to learn more about the deaf culture - I appreciated the information inserts. This felt like the focus of the book, accompanied by a story.