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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
This was a cute little read, one I can relate to well as my Cousin is deaf. Unfortunately I found the plot to be a little lacking, nothing really happening until the half way mark, and even then it didn't really pick up pace. I felt it was a little flat, like it needed something to give it a little oomf. It wasn't terrible or poorly written, it just wasn't for me.
“It doesn't matter if she's deaf," he says. "My aunty Demi can listen with her eyes, and whisper with her hands.”
Damn Australian writers and their heart-wrenching contemporary fiction. It never fails. It's an automatic instant love syndrome but in this case, I'm the one falling in love and not the characters in the book. Not that I'm complaining, it's just...I have a difficult time reviewing them because I sound like a broken record with each review (see AUSSOME shelf on Goodreads). And this book was no exception.
Whisper is about a teen girl adjusting to being deaf. She hasn't always been deaf; but a recent bout of meningitis plunged her to a silent world. Our words are most often misconstrued for no apparent reason than we're sometimes unable to find the right things to say. Friendships can be ruined and family relationships can be strained just because we can't get our points across. Being deaf affects a person's speech capabilities, hence the more chances that you can be misunderstood. This is pretty much the dictates of Demi's life. Her family's pretty supportive for the most part but she found it hard to acclimate to her mother's new suffocating worries.
This book was beautiful and thoughful in a simple way that it talked about the mundane things of life. But mundane could be relative to a person who's lost her hearing. Things like: Giving up her iPod because it's become useless to someone like her; or the beauty of swimming under water because everybody else is deaf to some degree under there. It made me think about how I would cope. How painful it would be to never hear my kids' laughters again or how I'd probably miss my husband's jet-engine snores while he sleeps. It's an unimaginable loss that's hard to endure.
Within Demi's story is a lesson about AUDISM. It's discrimination against the deaf. It's the horrible reality that I'm made aware of but not forcefully fed by the author. It also showed how it's always possible, albeit a bit difficult at first to form relationships with those who can hear. For me, I found an incredible sweetness in the way Demi would always have to look at Ethan's face and read his lips so she could get a grasp at what he was saying. There's this bubble around them when they're communicating; the need to be closer than most to understand each other better.
VERDICT: There's a lot we could all learn from Demi; acceptance of our frailties, courage to face the world with the abilities we're given and to constantly fight for what's right and what we believe in. This book was poignant, funny and real with strong characters who'd burry a hole in your heart. This is such a lovely book with some pretty valuable lessons we - deaf and hears, alike - could use.
Damn Australian writers and their heart-wrenching contemporary fiction. It never fails. It's an automatic instant love syndrome but in this case, I'm the one falling in love and not the characters in the book. Not that I'm complaining, it's just...I have a difficult time reviewing them because I sound like a broken record with each review (see AUSSOME shelf on Goodreads). And this book was no exception.
Whisper is about a teen girl adjusting to being deaf. She hasn't always been deaf; but a recent bout of meningitis plunged her to a silent world. Our words are most often misconstrued for no apparent reason than we're sometimes unable to find the right things to say. Friendships can be ruined and family relationships can be strained just because we can't get our points across. Being deaf affects a person's speech capabilities, hence the more chances that you can be misunderstood. This is pretty much the dictates of Demi's life. Her family's pretty supportive for the most part but she found it hard to acclimate to her mother's new suffocating worries.
This book was beautiful and thoughful in a simple way that it talked about the mundane things of life. But mundane could be relative to a person who's lost her hearing. Things like: Giving up her iPod because it's become useless to someone like her; or the beauty of swimming under water because everybody else is deaf to some degree under there. It made me think about how I would cope. How painful it would be to never hear my kids' laughters again or how I'd probably miss my husband's jet-engine snores while he sleeps. It's an unimaginable loss that's hard to endure.
Within Demi's story is a lesson about AUDISM. It's discrimination against the deaf. It's the horrible reality that I'm made aware of but not forcefully fed by the author. It also showed how it's always possible, albeit a bit difficult at first to form relationships with those who can hear. For me, I found an incredible sweetness in the way Demi would always have to look at Ethan's face and read his lips so she could get a grasp at what he was saying. There's this bubble around them when they're communicating; the need to be closer than most to understand each other better.
VERDICT: There's a lot we could all learn from Demi; acceptance of our frailties, courage to face the world with the abilities we're given and to constantly fight for what's right and what we believe in. This book was poignant, funny and real with strong characters who'd burry a hole in your heart. This is such a lovely book with some pretty valuable lessons we - deaf and hears, alike - could use.
4.5/5
Loved this book and how it incorporated her deafness into it. Everything was really good besides the Jules parts. Everyone had depth into them, even Stella who we just assumed to be that one kid who is spoiled and rich and everyone just listens, in the end it changed. As well as Nadia who wants to rekindle her friendship with Demi after realizing how mean her comments were. And oh my god the way Felicity got her nickname back. It’s all so good, the emotional bits hit just right for me even if some were weaker than others I have to admit. The swimming parts kinda lead nowhere except for Ethan saying how they were in sync, but maybe I’m missing something? Good book, truly did love it, rather short read as well only taking me about 3 hours and a half.
Loved this book and how it incorporated her deafness into it. Everything was really good besides the Jules parts. Everyone had depth into them, even Stella who we just assumed to be that one kid who is spoiled and rich and everyone just listens, in the end it changed. As well as Nadia who wants to rekindle her friendship with Demi after realizing how mean her comments were. And oh my god the way Felicity got her nickname back. It’s all so good, the emotional bits hit just right for me even if some were weaker than others I have to admit. The swimming parts kinda lead nowhere except for Ethan saying how they were in sync, but maybe I’m missing something? Good book, truly did love it, rather short read as well only taking me about 3 hours and a half.
At the opening of this novel, Demi has been deaf for two years due to meningitis. She has tried to remain the same person she was before she became deaf, but her experience of the world has changed irrevocably. She struggles at school, even with the help of an interpreter because she can't follow what her class-mates and teachers are saying. She has become isolated from her family and friends: and because of this, she decides to attend a school for deaf students. Perry does a good job of exploring Demi's emotions as she struggles to fit into both her old life and her entrance into Deaf culture. Though the ending is a little pat, I think the novel achieves a good balance in its explorations of Demi's experiences and the relationships between teenagers.
A big caveat for me is the novel's repeated, unchallenged use of the word "retard". The characters are quick to say they aren't retards, and given that we live in an ableist society, it's understandable they would feel this way, but the narrative doesn't challenge the use of this word at all, or make any positive reference towards developmentally disabled people. In a novel that is nuanced in its portrait of disability, this is very frustrating.
A big caveat for me is the novel's repeated, unchallenged use of the word "retard". The characters are quick to say they aren't retards, and given that we live in an ableist society, it's understandable they would feel this way, but the narrative doesn't challenge the use of this word at all, or make any positive reference towards developmentally disabled people. In a novel that is nuanced in its portrait of disability, this is very frustrating.
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
idk if the author is Deaf but i don’t think she is and that doesn’t sit right with me. i was kinda upset that they only mentioned that they were using Auslan once. it’s like instead of saying you speak english you say i speak spoken language. swimming could’ve been a bit more involved too. also ethan and jules weren’t that relevant.
Quite satisfying, this one. In Whisper, Demi has been deaf for about two years. By the time the book opens, she's already learned the basics: she speaks decent Sign and has learned to read lips, she's learned many of the little things that make life easier when you can't hear. But Demi is frustrated by the way the rest of the world seems to fly on ahead of her—she misses much of what goes on with her friends and family, her mother is focusing more on Demi's seemingly perfect older sister than on Demi, and Demi's not sure that, without hearing, she'll be able to achieve her goal of becoming a lawyer.
What I loved: putting Demi two years out from her hearing loss gave the room a lot more space to grow, I think. She tells of that initial understanding, but because we mostly spend time with Demi later in the process of learning what it is to be Deaf, we get a more nuanced understanding of what she's lost and gained. I also thought the school was really interesting—Demi opts, against her mother's wishes, to go to a school for the Deaf, because she hopes that she'll fit in there in a way that she no longer does at her former school. She does and she doesn't, which feels very realistic, and it also gives the reader a chance to see a range of characters not often well represented in fiction. I like that all of her friends, hearing and Deaf, have multiple facets; none of them is either perfect or totally wretched.
I'm torn on the way that Sign is represented here—it's written the same way that spoken language is, in quotation marks. ("Like this," she signed.) I've seen a variety of methods used in other books, including boldface (Like this, she signed) and some combination ("Like this," she said, signing at the same time). I can see arguments for both, and certainly I (as a hearing person) should not be any authority on which should be used...but I've always been partial to the bold, because it feels more like...silent language? I don't know if that makes sense.
Super happy that this one eventually turned up at the lib.
What I loved: putting Demi two years out from her hearing loss gave the room a lot more space to grow, I think. She tells of that initial understanding, but because we mostly spend time with Demi later in the process of learning what it is to be Deaf, we get a more nuanced understanding of what she's lost and gained. I also thought the school was really interesting—Demi opts, against her mother's wishes, to go to a school for the Deaf, because she hopes that she'll fit in there in a way that she no longer does at her former school. She does and she doesn't, which feels very realistic, and it also gives the reader a chance to see a range of characters not often well represented in fiction. I like that all of her friends, hearing and Deaf, have multiple facets; none of them is either perfect or totally wretched.
I'm torn on the way that Sign is represented here—it's written the same way that spoken language is, in quotation marks. ("Like this," she signed.) I've seen a variety of methods used in other books, including boldface (Like this, she signed) and some combination ("Like this," she said, signing at the same time). I can see arguments for both, and certainly I (as a hearing person) should not be any authority on which should be used...but I've always been partial to the bold, because it feels more like...silent language? I don't know if that makes sense.
Super happy that this one eventually turned up at the lib.
This book follows the main character Demi, who becomes deaf at the age of fourteen. The books starts when she is starting at the school for the Deaf.
I really loved this book. The writing style was not awfully descriptive, but I did not need it to be. This book gave me an insight of how being deaf would be like, and it made me feel grateful that I can hear. The story shows the discrimination she and her new deaf friends face, and how life is like, when you can't hear what other may be saying about you.
It was a very gripping story and it intrigued me to see how it was going to go. I read this book in two days, during a school period; that is how much I loved the book, to be able to whiz through it faster than what I thought possible.
The outcome of the story and the moral behind it is so beautiful, I am so grateful to be able to have read it, and I 100% recommend. I loved it.
I really loved this book. The writing style was not awfully descriptive, but I did not need it to be. This book gave me an insight of how being deaf would be like, and it made me feel grateful that I can hear. The story shows the discrimination she and her new deaf friends face, and how life is like, when you can't hear what other may be saying about you.
It was a very gripping story and it intrigued me to see how it was going to go. I read this book in two days, during a school period; that is how much I loved the book, to be able to whiz through it faster than what I thought possible.
The outcome of the story and the moral behind it is so beautiful, I am so grateful to be able to have read it, and I 100% recommend. I loved it.
Love that this novel explored deaf/disability pride!
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Read my full review on my blog: https://laurasadventuresinliterature.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/book-review-whisper/
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Read my full review on my blog: https://laurasadventuresinliterature.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/book-review-whisper/
I really enjoyed this book. I really liked the main character and her journey getting to know the deaf world and culture. I think if you enjoyed the series Switched at Birth you would like this book. The only downside is it was very predictable but it was an enjoyable read. There was quite a bit about technology too which dated it slightly, text speak, not a smart phone, MSN :)
Full Review:
I first read this book back in 2012, when it appeared on my radar and immediately grabbed my attention. I’ve been interested in learning sign language for a good decade now (I’ve got my level 2 in BSL), but also I enjoy learning about Deaf culture, along with all the opinions and debates around the subject of audism which go along with it. For example, should babies be given cochlear implants? You know that viral video of the toddler “hearing for the first time”? Yeah, I know a few Deaf people who hate that video, and everything it represents. Personally, I- as a hearing person- actually agree that it is a bad thing- but that is not the point of this review- I just wanted to explain how this came about on my radar.
The story follows Demi, a teenage girl who loses her hearing at age 14, due to meningitis. This book follows how she adjusts to her life and all the choices that come with it, while she adjusts from living a Hearing lifestyle to a Deaf lifestyle. Through the constant hope and following disappointment that her hearing will come back, through the debates by herself and her parents about getting a cochlear implant and learning sign language, and one of the biggest decisions for a teenager: going to a specialist school for the Deaf instead of a “normal” school.
I enjoyed this book, I re-read it in 2013, when I remembered I actually had a misprint in my edition, emailed the publishers, and they sent me a new and shiny fixed copy within a week of asking! (Thank you, Templar! Excellent customer service there!)
While this book is full of character stereotypes, for example, the overly nagging mother who begs her to live a “normal” life and not shy away from her hearing friends, a hearing love interest and a best friend from the new school who is more than a little bitter about her Deafness- however, I felt that this book considered the issues and debates around this controversial topic really well and also highlights a lot of issues in the world of Deaf culture and within the communication between Deaf and hearing persons well. I did feel it could have been more in depth and/or detailed in terms of the characters and plot line, but it is a solid book and I enjoyed it (enough to re-read and request a fixed copy!)
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys contemporary (YA) fiction which discusses controversial topics
I’d love to read more books which feature plots and characters concerning Deafness and Deaf culture, if anyone has any recommendations?
For more of my reviews, please visit thebookheap
http://thebookheap.wordpress.com