Reviews with content warning for Death - True Biz

I was hooked from the first chapter. I loved the chapters with information on Deaf Culture, the history of Anarchism, and of course our favorite girl, Charlie.

Favorite Quote: “This is not your fault; this is the way it always has been; there is nothing any of us can do; I love you so much for trying”

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shirarweiss's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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madelinedalton's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

I loved how this novel explored the characters of Charlie and Austin, and their relationship with one another. The thing that will stick with me most is Charlie's journey from being forced to assimilate into hearing culture to gaining language at RVSD and embracing her deafness.

Some criticisms:

February and Mel. I don't feel like either of them developed as characters at all. They were so bad at communicating, and the ending was so rushed that we never got to see them make up or grow from their conflict.

Speaking of the ending, it was SO rushed. We needed at least 20 more pages to wrap all that up. The novel opens with Charlie, Elliot, and Austin disappearing, so I was expecting a major pay-off by the time we circled back to that action. Instead, it felt rushed and un-earned.

Charlie's involvement with the anarchists, and the anarchy plot line in general, didn't jive with me. It felt like Charlie was living two separate lives--normal kid with a lot of issues who is trying to find her way in the world vs. rebel child. Austin's willingness to go along with all of it also felt very uncharacteristic. I understand that Charlie needed some sort of outlet for rebellion, but based on how her character was portrayed, I'd expect it to be more tame than cooking literal bombs and planning to blow up Edge Bionics. That just seems too far for both her and Austin.

Finally, I didn't love the chapters that came from the perspectives of peripheral characters (Kayla, Wanda, Charlie's mom, Elliot, etc). It took me out of the story. I would have preferred that the narration stayed with our three main perspectives and that we were given more of the peripheral characters' perspectives via those chapters. Another cool option would have been to give those characters stronger narrative roles and more chapters, creating a true ensemble cast. For example, Kayla's chapter about racism and BASL was fascinating and educational, but we never circled back to it, and I was really disappointed. I would have loved a subplot about racism that ran through the novel as a whole rather than a couple random chapters. Wanda's chapter felt un-earned because the February/Mel conflict was never resolved.

Overall, I think all hearing people should read this to learn more about Deaf culture and support Deaf authors. The book is not without its writing flaws, though.

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