#anna sortino

Disability-focused/centric: yes

Created by a disabled person/people: yes

Disability represented: deafness

Fiction or non-fiction: fiction

Summary:

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Give Me a Sign is about a deaf girl named Lilah reconnecting with Deaf culture (also there's romance).

When Lilah was younger, she went to Camp Gray Wolf, a camp for the Deaf and blind. Camp Gray Wolf was the first and only place she found where she was encouraged to embrace Deaf culture and ASL. Now, she's 16 and wants to be a junior camp counselour. But then... stuff happens! Audism! Miscommunication! A crush on one of the other counselours! Wow! /silly. Give Me a Sign is set in America, so Lilah and the other Deaf folks use ASL. It's a Young Adult novel.

Trigger warnings: ableism.

Why I Think It's Good:

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Realistic portrayal of audism. Like, painfully realistic. Genuinely-makes-me-mad-and-sometimes-scared realistic.

Great introduction to Deaf culture! Throughout the book, little bits of Deaf culture are introduced. It's not overwhelming with the amount of stuff you're learning, but it's not underwhelming either. The perfect in-between.

Review: Give Me A Sign by Anna Sortino Rating: 5/5

It's been a long time since a book made me cry. An even longer time since a book made me cry with joy. 

This was a beautiful book about the joys and frustrations of growing up d/Deaf. Sortino pulls no punches in showing the difficulties all sorts of d/Deaf people experience as they try to move through a hearing world. But she also does an incredible job showcasing d/Deaf joy!

The antics among the camp counsellors, the mentorships between the counsellors and the campers, the joy of making friends and learning sign language and embracing deafness not just as a disability but as an identity. It was all so wonderful!

book review | Give Me a Sign

Author: Anna Sortino

Cover Designer: Kaitlin Yang

Jacket Art: Christina Chung

Genre: YA Fiction, Romance

Lilah is stuck in the middle. At least, that’s what having a hearing loss seems like sometimes—when you don’t feel “deaf enough” to identify as Deaf or hearing enough to meet the world’s expectations. But this summer, Lilah is ready for a change. When Lilah becomes a counselor at a summer camp for the deaf and blind, her plan is to brush up on her ASL. Once there, she also finds a community. There are cute British lifeguards who break hearts but not rules, a YouTuber who’s just a bit desperate for clout, the campers Lilah’s responsible for (and overwhelmed by)—and then there’s Isaac, the dreamy Deaf counselor who volunteers to help Lilah with her signing. Romance was never on the agenda, and Lilah’s not positive Isaac likes her that way. But all signs seem to point to love. Unless she’s reading them wrong? One thing’s for sure: Lilah wanted change, and things here are certainly different than what she’s used to. In her sweet and swoony debut, Anna Sortino delivers a poignant coming-of-age story and a revelatory exploration of Deaf culture, its vastness, and its beautiful complexities.

Such a sweet read! The summer camp vibes were peak throughout, although I did find myself wishing that the author had put energy towards developing just 1 or 2 plot points or slightly cutting back on the number of characters. Aside from El Deafo, by Cece Bell, this is the only book that I've come across organically which features a Deaf protagonist. Sortino covers so many aspects of Deaf culture in a way that will be accessible to her YA target audience. At the same time, she acknowledges that each person's experience will be different (both through the character interactions and the author's note).

With Lilah, I enjoyed seeing her growth over the course of the novel as she explored new responsibilities, improved her ASL, built relationships and balanced all the typical challenges of young adulthood. Her character's voice is great overall (with the occasional slip into reading as also almost textbook-like in its explanations) which kept me engaged throughout. Sortino has added something wonderful to this space in the YA market and I'm looking forward to the stories she'll write in the future.

Side note - I also found it interesting that there is no glossary or such in this book. A lot of terms pertaining to Deaf culture are dropped and not all of them are explained. I ended up doing my own research, being mindful of the resources or content creators I turned to (which is something discussed in relation to Mackenzie's role as an hearing ASL content creator). I love it when a book forces me to do my own HW, leading me to build connections outside of what's contained within its pages :)

I don't really pay attention to/remember descriptions of character's appearances, so I just based it off how she looks on the cover.

(New Young Adult Releases Coming Out Today! (July 2nd, 2024)

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Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

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New Releases:

Eleanor Jones Can’t Keep a Secret by Amy Doak

A Darker Mischief by Derek Milman

On the Bright Side by Anna Sortino

Ready Or Not by Andi Porretta

Not About A Boy by Myah Hollis

Joined at the Joints by Marissa Ellis

The Midnight Game by Cynthia Murphy

The Ones Who Come Back Hungry by Amelinda Bérubé

Rise by Freya Finch

We Don't Have Time for This by Brianna Craft

Fun Fact: I Love You by Gina Lynn Larsen

Illustrated Girl by Josephine Angelini

New Sequels:

The Heart of the World (The Isles of the Gods #2) by Amie Kaufman

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By Anna Sortino / 5 stars

(Publish date upcoming, July 11, 2023)

Oh man. This book. Where do I even begin? Beautiful, eye-opening. Sweet and heartfelt.

Selfishly, this book has made me miss ASL. As life happens and friends move away, I largely stopped using it, stopped learning. Even though the experience of learning a language, learning THIS language, was like nothing I could have ever imagined. I haven't jumped back into it yet, but I've thought about and in ASL often during and since reading.

The glimpse into the deaf community, how they view themselves, their hearing loss, their culture, was such a gift. So often, it's hard to be an outsider. You forget that it can be just as hard being part of a group, a culture, and feeling like you don't belong either.

Lilah is hard of hearing, a fact she feels is taken for granted when she can pass as a hearing person with her hearing aids. So often, people forget that she missed things, that she has to work to fill in the gaps to follow a conversation. That she can't hear if she can't see a person's lips to lip read. She's never learned ASL fluently, nor has her family offered to learn for her.

When she gets the junior counselor job at Camp Grey Wolf, she's excited. The camp is for kids who are deaf and blind, and she remembers the sense of belonging she felt when she went as a kid. Lilah worries though that she won't be able to help enough. Will she be able to communicate fully with her campers? Is she deaf enough to really have a place at camp? And is the guy she's crushing on actually into her as well?

A nice balance of romance, and finding your place in the world. A book that will resonate well with everyone, but (hopefully) especially in the deaf and hard of hearing community. One that gives those of us without hearing loss a glimpse into the other side, opening awareness of what life can be like for those without one of their senses. And now it's not something to be pitied, and can be a strength in some ways, but also makes you more understanding and aware at the same time. I would love to see more books like this, with deaf or hard of hearing main characters, and I can only imagine how much more so people who relate more closely to those MCs would feel.