Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

True Biz by Sara Nović

5 reviews

ohheyitskaitlin's review

emotional funny hopeful informative sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Medical content, Ableism, Car accident, Medical trauma, Death, Alcohol, Drug use, Grief, Cursing, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Blood, Dementia, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Child death, Confinement, Racism, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Forced institutionalization, Classism, Mental illness, Sexism, Police brutality, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Violence

franklola's review

adventurous emotional informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Drug use, Grief, Ableism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Vomit, Blood, and Car accident

martinatan's review

emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a killer, heartfelt story! I loved the use of the chapter bumpers as diegetic one-pagers on Deaf culture, ASL, and Wikipedia articles. The ending and how it resolved formative conflicts in the three protagonists’  lives was so satisfying to experience. I loved that it served as a testament to direct action, while showing that the tradeoffs in taking such action are hard to ignore when multiple parties’ livelihoods are at stake.

This novel truly feels like a love letter to the Deaf community and disabled activists. The author does a wonderful job of incorporating different archetypes of Deaf experience that dispel any thoughts of monolith from Deaf ideologies. After reading this, I am more curious about other intersectional identities that were not covered related to race, gender, religion, and other disability.

The formatting of dialogue and illustrative chapter titles speak to the spirit of the term “deaf gain” as opposed to “hearing loss”—these visual and spatial tidbits enhance Nović’s strong artistic voice. Highly recommend to anyone seeking an earnest and important coming-of-age story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Ableism, Body shaming, Death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Racism, Car accident, Drug use, Dementia, and Alcohol

Minor: Grief, Hate crime, Confinement, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Vomit, Classism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, and Abandonment

kimveach's review

emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

True Biz is a fascinating story of a deaf school, its students, and its principal.  I learned so much about the struggles within the deaf community regarding cochlear implants, American Sign Language, and how to best educate a child.  The decisions parents must make with a newly diagnosed hearing impaired baby were heartbreaking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Classism, Cursing, Child abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Abandonment, Alcohol, Bullying, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Ableism, Bullying, Car accident, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content

vthecreature's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This is definitely a one-of-a-kind read in terms of story and subject matter. There’s POVs from Deaf characters in different situations, and each of their experiences provide insight into the Deaf community. This definitely inspired me to try to learn ASL again, and taught me a lot about Deaf history, culture, and issues. The writing style was also unique and quite good. My favorite aspect was the representation of Charlie learning ASL: a blank when she doesn’t understand a word, then another character fingerspells and teachers her the sign, and then the sign is added to her vocabulary.
However, this was only a 3.5 star book for me. It seemed as though the author was very passionate about Deafness and wanted to share that with the world, and so packed as much information as they could into a book and then laid a plot overtop of it. There was very little about the actual school, instead focusing on unrelated issues in each character’s life. There was too much going on (especially in February’s storyline) and it detracted from the story. Several characters were problematic or poorly written.

Charlie used Austin’s Deafness to make the hearing people in her life angry or jealous. February was dishonest with her wife and emotionally cheated on her.

Some characters existed solely to point out an issue faced by Deaf people, rather than being complex characters.

Eliot (who was in the book blurb) was largely absent from the story until he showed up at the end to reveal his tragic backstory to some people he’s barely talked to.

Then there was Kayla, a token Black character whose role was to shine a brief light on racism in the Deaf community, and then disappear from the story.
Another character that stood out to me was the shallow bully Gabriella. I thought people were done writing female characters this way!
Lots of aspects of this story served no purpose, so the exposition in the first several chapters (besides the very first one) was unnecessary and hard to get through.
 Then there were the graphics. I liked the visual cues about ASL, since it’s a visual language. But other things (like a Wikipedia article on Robespierre, or a

literal homemade bomb recipe

) were jarring. Besides that, the ambiguous ending and lack of resolution just sealed the deal for me. I think you’d like this book if you’re interested in Deaf culture/history/issues, you’re used to reading YA, and you’re not super analytical about reading and writing.
Other things to keep in mind:
• There are no quotation marks, in spoken English or ASL.
• This book is tagged as lgbtqia+. Yes, there are queer characters (February and her wife) but the relationship is unhealthy and feels straight, if that makes sense. 
• Read the content warnings. There’s a lot of questionable behavior in this book that doesn’t lead to any consequences or lessons. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Drug use, Medical content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death of parent, Dementia, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Confinement, and Racism

Minor: Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, and Police brutality

bombs, explosion, implied forced medical procedure