The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais

The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais is a coming of age YA romance that features a Deaf protagonist! September is Deaf Awareness Month, so I though it appropriate to post this now. Maya is a seventeen-year-old girl who grew up hearing but got sick with meningitis, therein losing her ability to hear and becomes Deaf. She recently moved to Colorado from New Jersey and readjusts to being at a hearing school, having attended a deaf school for many years, due to the fact that the nearest deaf school is too far a commute. 

Maya goes through many struggles, juggling with her brother’s cystic fibrosis, CF, while trying to fit in with the hearing students. Soon, she meets Beau, the student council president, one of the only hearing students who actually takes an interest in her and ASL. Maya is more focused on school and so he isn’t even on her radar, especially with him being a hearing boy…

(SPOILER WARNING! START)

We start off with our main girl Maya, who is Deaf, and she’s in the principal’s office on her first day of school. Don’t go thinking she did anything wrong now, but she is there to meet her new interpreter, Kathleen, and her peer mentor, Nina. At the current moment in time, she is grumpy about having to go to a hearing school and isn’t really open to making hearing friends. 

There is a first day of school assembly, where she meets the student body president, Beau. Beau is an awkward rabbit, is how Maya describes him anyways, easily flustered and such. He also tried to hand her an Engelmann High t-shirt, which she declined but Kathleen grabbed for her anyways. Nina then helps her around the school, directing her to her classes and whatnot. 

Maya ends up meeting Beau again due to her sitting with Nina at lunch and Nina sits with Beau. During this time, Maya uses her voice for the first time, on the first day, to tell off a hearing boy, Jackson, Beau is surprised that she can speak! Like, just because she’s Deaf doesn’t mean she can’t speak, she just chooses not to. This automatically put Beau in a bad place with Maya. The day after, he tries to apologize through sign language! He actually made the effort to try and learn her language to apologize for his ignorant rudeness. I honestly think that’s amazing.

As time goes by, Maya starts becoming close to Nina, and in turn, Beau. Nina may be picking up ASL through her conversations with Maya but Beau has actually gone out of his way to learn ASL actively, coming back each day with new signs to be able to communicate with Maya. As Beau and Maya get closer, Beau finally asks Maya out on a date! They go the date, but have no official label afterwards so they are in this weird space of: “Are we dating? Are we not dating? What are we?” 

Eventually, Maya’s eighteenth birthday arrives and Beau gives her information on getting a cochlear implant, despite knowing how she feels about them and never wants one. This cuts Maya deep because she thought that Beau liked her for her, deaf and all. 

Beau is confused on why she doesn’t want the cochlear implants, thinking they would help. They finally have a talk about things and then they start over, quite literally, Beau leaves and then comes back, reintroducing himself as if it was the first time they were meeting. There is an epilogue that takes place a year after, showing Maya happy and with Beau still, officially dating. 

(SPOILER WARNING! END)

I am in absolute love with this book! This is the first book that I’ve found with a Deaf protagonist and am very pleased with it. There is only one thing that I found that I didn’t like about this book and that was the fact that throughout the book the characters signed mostly PSE, pidgin signed english, and not a lot of ASL. But I know with the new generation of deaf kids, PSE is becoming more mainstreamed and more deaf people are starting to sign this way. Not the point, I love this book despite all that, why? Because this book accurately depicts a Deaf person, with their struggles and the certain situations that only they go through.

I, myself, am Hard of Hearing, and could see a little of myself in Maya. It doesn’t help the fact that I actually do some of the habits that Maya does in the book, like her doodling when she’s bored, which I know is very common, but she doodled a whole page of boxes. Boxes. Like, that is oddly specific and I thought I was the only who did that, everyone around me always questions why I doodled boxes randomly. Also with the fact that both of us are from New Jersey, one of the worst states possible, it is a cesspool. 

Still not the point, sorry, but I really like Maya as a character. She is strong and confident and doesn’t take any bull from anybody. The parts where she was annoyed at hearing people had me annoyed too, especially Jackson. I did not like Jackson, the lump he is. He absolutely annoyed the living daylights out of me. At least Beau learned what to say and what not to say to deaf people, but Jackson just can’t seem to shut his darned mouth. I like the fact that she stood up for herself and told him off. Despite being late deafened, Maya is proud to be Deaf and wouldn’t change herself, which I find amazing, especially since the topic of cochlear implants, CIs, came up a lot in conversation and she stated she doesn’t want one now and will never want one. 

Personally, I wouldn’t want to get CIs, my hearing is deteriorating and I am perfectly fine with it. I am learning ASL and Deaf Culture, I even went to school for it and graduated May 2020 with an Associates in Deaf Studies/Pre-Interpreting. I still have much to learn and kind of want to be an interpreter until my hearing is completely gone, but I’ll worry about that later. Cochlear implants are a very hot topic in the Deaf community and my stance is that if the deaf individual wants the CI themselves, after doing a ton of research to be aware of the pros and cons, then they should get it. I don’t like the fact that many parents force their kids to get CIs when they’re so young because they don’t really have a say and they don’t know that there is a whole community of people just like them with their own language and culture. 

This book is very well written and I really enjoy it with its depiction of a Deaf girl with her struggles of dealing with a hearing world. These are struggles that a lot of Deaf people face and it is great that this book is bringing awareness to these problems. Also I really like that Alison Gervais formatted the ASL in the book in the fashion of glossing, I thought that was really cool. 

Thank you for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed this one. I tried to keep it short and sweet, but knowing me it is a really long ramble. There is one thing I wish I could ask Alison Gervais: did you look into NJ signs versus CO signs? Just like in English, ASL has its own dialects, signing the same word, but depending where you live, it’s produced differently. Like how hoagie, hero, and sub are all the same kind of sandwich. But that’s enough from me. I recommend this book to everyone, ten out of ten, all five stars! This is a good book for those who are learning about ASL and Deaf culture and good for those who are familiar with both but will enjoy the accurate representation. This book cuts hard and true about Deaf culture and deaf struggles that this is a must read for everyone. Please comment down below! Do you know ASL? Are you interested in learning? How do you feel about this book? Come back next time for another review! SEE YOU LATER. Happy Deaf Awareness Month!