A review by aromanticreadsromance
On the Bright Side by Anna Sortino

challenging emotional hopeful

I absolutely DEVOURED Anna Sortino's debut novel, Give Me a Sign, when I read it in 2023, and this book was no different! I read it from "cover" to "cover" in a day! Truthfully, I liked her first book better, but her sophomore release holds space for just as touching, timely, and nuanced discussions around the disabled experience.

What I LOVED:

• The sobering message that anyone, at any time, can become disabled. We've talked about this a lot in the last few years in terms of (long) COVID, when even people who had been "healthy" their entire lives were put on ventilators and suffering from symptoms long after testing negative again. Especially when we're young, we think about disability as something that happens to us later in life (we all get old, then have trouble taking care of ourselves). This is Jackson's perception at the beginning of the book. But like Jackson, young people can become disabled when they're... well, young.
• How even well-intentioned parents can hurt us. Jackson's dad pushes him WAY too hard to always be moving ("hey son, let's go do CrossFit training after you played a scrimmage all morning"). His mom is basically anti-vax (she regrets getting him vaccinated so he could go to public school) and believes in homeopathic medicine. Both his parents are skeptical of traditional medicine and only rush him to the doctor/hospital when something is SERIOUSLY wrong. Jackson's diagnosis is a miniscule come-to-Jesus moment for them (mainly for his dad; his mom still researches 'alternative' treatments and tries to control his diet).
• The importance of finding community. When Ellie is forced to mainstream after her Deaf school is shut down, she loses her Deaf community that she had built over the last five years. She returns home to a hearing family who never bothered to learn sign and doesn't understand why she needs hearing breaks (her mother tells her that unless she is sleeping, she MUST have her cochlear and hearing aid in). She is now the only deaf student at her school and must rebuild that sense of community. I loved her little found family and the Deaf House. After his diagnosis, an essential part of Jackson's healing comes from finding community in the MS group.
• Ellie's nuanced perspective on disability pride. Having pride doesn't mean you never wish for a cure for your disability. It means knowing your disability doesn't make you "lesser than" abled people or who you were before disability.
• Ellie's acknowledgment that her experience of disability since birth is different from Jackson's experience of sudden disability. Ellie does not know a life before or without her Deafness, so it does not feel like a loss to her. Her Deafness is also a stable part of her identity (it won't get worse as she gets older). But Jackson's entire lifestyle must change after his MS diagnosis (he can no longer be as active as he once was or play soccer to the same degree as he once could), and he faces a scary and unknown future (as MS is a progressive disease).

What I think could be improved:

• The pacing. The build up to Jackson's diagnosis took up much of the book.
• Ellie and Jackson's relationship. I don't know, I didn't feel a huge connection or spark between them. They seemed to like each other almost immediately. There wasn't much tension or pining.

Thank you to Penguin Teen for the advanced copy of this book! All thoughts are my own.