True Biz

Centered around a school for the deaf, this was quite an interesting immersion into a culture I don't know much about. Nović - who is deaf herself - intersperses the plot with little informative segments about deaf culture: unique aspects of sign language, the differences between ASL and Black-ASL, the history of Deaf President Now...

She ends with a list of US-based mostly closed-down schools for the deaf. The whole book is a reminder, that while integration of deaf students into regular schools is a good intention, but it also robs them of their safe haven, the place where they are not seen as deficient or lacking.

While I don't think the plot and structure fully succeeded, I thought the characters were great vessels to introduce us to the various aspects of living within or around deaf culture. How hard parents want to fix the problem, and how hard it must be growing up in a world you feel you never can fully communicate with. Videophones, interpreters, botched cochlear implants, direct action ...