By Ben Gates
Give Me A Sign is a book about deaf culture, finding others in your community, and learning how to accept yourself and find your identity. It follows Lilah, who describes herself as not liking being “stuck in the middle,” since to her, she doesn’t feel “deaf enough” to embrace it as part of her identity while not being hearing enough to meet the expectations of the world. Her grades have been getting worse as her junior year is ending since her accommodations don’t help, and her teachers and classmates don’t understand what she needs.
The only place she ever felt comfortable embracing deaf culture as well as seeing it was a deaf summer school she went to as a kid called Camp Gray Wolf, and after a conversation with some friends about summer jobs, she decides she wants to work as a junior counselor there. She ends up getting the job, and spends the summer meeting other deaf people, relearning deaf culture, seeing other people’s deaf experience, and practicing her American Sign Language (ASL). She meets many faces, such as Mackenzie, a hearing Youtuber that “teaches” people ASL on her channel. The person she gets to know best is a fellow deaf counselor, Isaac, who she starts to fall in love with. As the summer goes on, conflict starts to appear, as Lilah learns about the camp’s growing financial problem, and that she can’t figure out if Isaac has feelings toward her or not. Despite these growing matters, Lilah keeps going, having a summer that lets her learn about herself, and how to embrace her deaf identity, as well as learn of others’ experiences being deaf.
I loved this book, simply put. Deaf culture was such an interesting topic to read about, and how it talks about ableism resonated with me, as I was in as wheelchair for 3 months earlier this year, and while that was extremely different to being deaf, I had seen similar things happen to me, such as people treating me different, and always being stared at, as well as the world not being made for the required needs of disabled people. There wasn’t anything in the book that sticks out in a way I disliked; despite having things I normally don’t like in books. This applies almost exclusively to romance, which has always been something I didn’t like to read much, but in this book, it felt more wholesome, realistic, and something that was fun to read. What stuck with me the most from the book was where Lilah says, “if I had to choose between being fully hearing or fully deaf, I’m not certain my decision would be obvious. And maybe, if the loss were profound… I’d seem ‘deaf enough’ that my classmates would truly understand my need for all those accommodations, rather than silently judge and question me. Because right now, they know I’m not hearing, but I don’t fit their expectations of deafness, either. It’s a strange realm, here in the middle” (Sortino 6). This, along with the line on the back of the book in the summary where it says that she is tired of being stuck in the middle, has always stayed in my mind because of just how personal and impactful they feel to me. They show just how much someone’s experience can differ from someone else’s, even if they have the same struggle. Someone fully deaf would not feel this, yet they have the same struggle. If I were to rate this book from 1 to 5 (1 lowest, 5 highest), I would give it a 5. I couldn’t think of a more realistic or better story to represent deaf experience, which makes sense, sense — Anna Sortino herself is deaf. While this book is not part of a series, the author has other books that I do plan to read at some point because of how much I loved this book.