Lilah is adrift in a world that doesn't quite fit for her. Her friends, family, and doctors don't fully understand her experience with hearing loss and it is a struggle. Not quite "deaf enough" and certainly not "hearing enough" her identity is up in the air. By reconnecting with old friends and new as a junior counselor at a Deaf summer camp, Lilah starts to discover what it means to embrace her whole self and finds that she doesn't have to have it all figured out, but there are people that will join her on the journey to finding herself.

Coming of age books always tug at the heartstrings, even more so with stellar disability representation. This book covers a good spectrum of not only hearing loss, but vision loss as well and provides an accessible oasis for the characters to thrive. If you don't have any knowledge of Deaf culture you will enjoy this book, but if you do you will see the value in the careful craft of the characters. The author addresses so many topics from audism, language deprivation, assistive devices, oppression, hearing privilege/clout, sign language acquisition, and more. These are difficult topics that I feel covered in a way that is thorough and age appropriate for the target audience for this book. This should definitely be on the shelf of anyone who works with young people with hearing loss, especially those struggling with their (d)Deaf identity. The message in this book is amazing - there isn't one thing that works for all (d)Deaf/Hard of Hearing/DeafBlind people, but there is a community of support in figuring it out.

I could NOT put it down! It’s a sweet contemporary romance that is so easy to devour. There is humor, there is friendship, there is love, there is tackling of some tough issues in sweet, thoughtful ways. Lilah heads to summer camp as a junior counsellor, in hopes to prove herself and immerse more in a world (as a deaf child of hearing parents, one of her big goals is to learn ASL more fluently). One of my favorite aspects of this book is the rep—a huge majority of the characters have varying levels of disabilities. I also absolutely love the camp setting. I never even WENT to a sleep away camp as a kid, but man was I obsessed with the idea of it—somehow this book had me feeling nostalgic about my childhood daydreams! Finally, the voice. I absolutely loved immersing myself in Lilah’s world. The book was such a sweet, fun read and I cannot recommend it enough!

I’d like to first state that I’m not Deaf. That being said, my degree is in ASL interpreting and I have spent countless time in Deaf spaces. This story is reminiscent of stories I’ve heard in the Deaf community. I think this book is phenomenal with representation. The cover shows characters using ASL, the book seamlessly blends ASL and spoken English through the written dialogue. I hope many hearing people read this book, it brings up typical ableist things hearing people do/say to Deaf people - maybe without knowing it’s ableist. This is also such a cute and fun summer camp story. I’ve already pre-order this book months ago, so when I got the approval for the ARC I was ecstatic.

Ahh, loved this! It was a bit more infuriating than I was expecting just because ableists going to ableist, but ultimately what a wonderful celebration of Deaf pride. I loved so many of these characters and even found the romance very cute.

I loved the representation of the deaf community in this book. There were a tonne of little things that I hadn't considered, for example, people who are hard of hearing feeling uncomfortable in the disabled and hearing communities. I did, however, think the plot dragged in the middle, and I found myself having to push through.

Can a job at a summer camp for deaf and blind kids help Lilah, 17, come to terms with speaking American Sign Language while finding a place in the deaf community?

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers of this book for the e-arc copy.

Give Me A Sign touches on finding yourself, finding where you feel most comfortable and showed a lot of what the deaf culture consists of. It was truly eye opening and made me more aware of things that I hadn’t known about prior. I’m so happy I was able to read this, experience the camp with all of the characters and just see their outlooks on everything. Experiencing, how they were able to breakthrough certain obstacles that may have been hard or scary was lovely!

I will say, some parts did fall a bit short and made me unable to stay interested , but overall it was such a great read and I hope many people will read it. 4/5 ⭐️

I received an ARC and I’m leaving an honest review.

The differences and clear lines between the hearing world and the Deaf world are very stark in this book (and in reality). It was nice to read about this immersion into Deaf culture and how, even in your own community, it can be hard to accept your identity.

The supermarket incident was hard to read, and the knowledge that it's a situation (and misunderstanding) that happens all the time didn't make it any less terrifying.

One thing I loved is the fact that almost the entire cast was disabled, and I think it's great that we have this type of story in a young adult book, both for the Deaf kids who'll see themselves represented and for the hearing ones that will start to have a better understanding of what life is like for other people.

Because of my own anxiety (and nightmare past experience as a summer camp counselor), I was panicking and tearing up every time Lilah fell behind with ASL, or made a mistake as a counselor. It had me unintentionally on edge since the start of the book.

Isaac was a sweetheart, but he frustrated me a little bit. Despite the language barrier, he still could have found ways to emotionally communicate a little better with Lilah. But in a way, I also understand him so I can't blame him too much for that. I loved how their relationship developed and how they kept talking to each other after the end, too.

Content warnings: violence, ableism (external and internalized), prejudice, police brutality, alcohol, underage drinking, bullying, injury, sexual harassment, hearing person using ASL for clout.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for this ARC! This book was definitely more contemporary than romance. I think it is very eye opening to deaf culture. There are some very important conversations being had in the book that people outside of the deaf community need to hear. I liked Lilah. I wish we saw her develop more in terms of relationships outside of Isaac. I think there were other characters I wanted to hear more from like Natasha and the life guards. Overall it’s a good read.

Have you ever read a book and thought “ok I just read a book that really matters, it’s really important that it was written and that I read it”. That’s what Give Me.a Sign felt like. It’s a book that really matters.

This book follows Lilah who is 17 and hard of hearing (HOH). She ends up being a counselor at Camp Gray Wolf, a camp for those that are deaf or blind. She navigates summer camp, romance, and figuring out for her what being part of the Deaf community means.

This book is sweet and fun and really shows that REPRESENTATION MATTERS. It also tackles thoughts and questions of ableism in a palatable way for teens.

Read for:
Coming of age
ASL/Deaf Rep
Summer camp
Young love
Disability Rep
YA
Single POV
Friends to lovers

“I can bring both world’s together. Just by being myself, I’m complete”

5⭐

This is easily one of the best YA books I've read this year. It filled a YA shaped hole in my heart that I didn't even know I had and I loved it so so much. Lilah and Isaac were everything but also the Deaf culture and discussion on disabilities in this book? Fantastic, I highlighted so many parts. This book was basically True Biz from last year if it was more young adult and there was some really adorable romance.

The summer camp vibes and falling in love moments including the classic nervous teen moment where Lilah thinks Isaac doesn't like her makes this book a perfect summer read. But the Deaf experience portrayed in this book is for all the time and that is the most important part of this book. Everyone should read this one because you will fall in love with Lilah, Isaac and their community and learn a lot as well.

I finished Give Me a Sign in about a day because I pretty much couldn't stop reading, if that's any indication of my enjoyment of the book (which yes, it is!). I had a lot of fun reading about Camp Gray Wolf, learning about the Deaf community and Deaf culture, and realizing just how inaccessible our world is (not that I've never thought of that, but as a hearing person, I'd never thought in depth about it).

I love summer camp romances--they give me that wistfulness/nostalgia for an experience I haven't had, and they make me wish I'd gotten to go to a fun camp over the summer! But more than that, I loved getting to see Lilah learn about herself and her Deaf identity, as she starts the book feeling very much in the middle of being hearing and deaf, not feeling like her hearing was bad enough to really allow herself to call herself capital D Deaf, but also very much so struggling around hearing people, like her friends and parents and at school. We get to see, over the course of this camp, Lilah not only learning ASL and becoming more fluent in it but also becoming more comfortable and confident in herself and figuring out what being Deaf means to her. Along the way, she makes new friends, finds her place at camp, and gets a really sweet, charming romance.

This is the first book I've read with a Deaf/hard of hearing main character, and I really hope there will be more books like this to read and love; diversity in representation of all forms is so important, and going through Lilah's struggles in Give Me a Sign helped to open my eyes to what kinds of everyday problems Deaf people face. Listening fatigue, the lack of closed captioning in movie theaters, the dismissive attitude of Hearies to the challenges of Deaf people and ableist attitudes are things I hadn't considered much before, as I don't know anyone who's Deaf. The discussion centered around Mackenzie's Youtube channel in the book was interesting, as I can easily see this being based off of real people/content creators who are not part of the Deaf community; it was good to see Mackenzie acknowledge what she'd done wrong, at least in some capacity, and to realize that she'd never fully understand what Deaf people go through. I do wish we'd gotten a bit more character development for all the characters, as we only really learn some superficial facts about each of them, which I think is one of the weakest parts of the book. However, I get that in first person POV, that's always a challenge, especially due to the focus on Deaf culture, community, and identity, even for Lilah, as we don't know too much about Lilah beyond that.

The romance is super cute, very YA, and not terribly deep, but I still liked it a lot (what can I say, I'm always a sucker for romance); Lilah and Isaac are attracted to each other from the beginning, and it's clear that Isaac pays a lot of attention to Lilah and flirts with her (it's really cute though, like I kicked my feet because it was just that adorable lol). Isaac has his own share. of hurt from hearing people around him at school, as we learn, but it doesn't exactly come into play the way that Natasha kind of warns Lilah about, which, now that I think about it, is a little odd, since it feels like one of those threads that was introduced but not quite used. I think I see where it might've tied into what happens at the major conflict, but not quite. Overall, the romance is pretty low drama (a hint of a love triangle, kind of) and adds a lot of smiles and fluff to this book that help. to balance out the heavier topics when it comes to interacting with people outside of camp.

Writing-wise, I think some additional dialogue tags would've helped, as I understand cutting them sometimes, but in some instances it was a bit hard for me to tell who was speaking/signing. Other than that, I thought the use of speaking and signing was really neat, as it definitely changes depending on who Lilah is interacting with, and it gets used as kind of a part of the plot in Lilah's frequency of usage. I've always found ASL interesting (I only know the alphabet lol) and wanted to learn, and I definitely looked up some signs when they got described in the book (thank you, belong, etc.) to better understand what these signs look like; reading this also makes me want to start learning more ASL because it's so cool! All language is fascinating, and ASL is no exception.

Thank you to Netgalley/G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers for the ARC! I'm looking forward to Anna Sortino's sophomore novel that I believe is coming out next year.

Thank you to Penguin for this ARC to read and review 2.5 Stars
I really, really, really, wanted to love this book. The disability representation was so fantastic and some of the best I've ever read in a book, however one dimensional characters, a lack of an engaging writing style, and poor depiction of BIPOC characters made it impossible to enjoy.
Lilah as well as just about every character in this book are very flat, there's nothing to them, no complexities, flaws, or even major character growth. The only information I was able to retain from Lilah is that she likes strawberry cheesecake jelly beans, is a little boy crazy, and isn't fluent in ASL. That's it. We don't get any other information about Lilah, her hopes, dreams, or even more about her.
There is a large cast of characters in this, it was difficult to keep track of who is who, or even their position in the camp. Many characters felt unnecessary to the plot, and it was hard to even discern the differences between them. If you gave me a list of every character mentioned, I wouldn't be able to tell you what they looked like, or defining characteristics of their personalities.
The "romance" lacked chemistry, coherent sense, and honestly felt incredibly awkward and forced. There is a semi love triangle at one point, and then it kinda gets dropped out of nowhere and the second "love interest" isn't really mentioned again. It didn't at all feel necessary to the story, and if anything just muddled what was going on. Isaac and Lilah had no chemistry, and truly their relationship went from zero to one hundred, with Lilah having an instant love crush. Much like many other characters, there was an inconsistency to Isaac's character motivations that made it difficult to discern what even was happening.
Maybe it was the first person writing style, but so much of the story involves telling rather then showing what is going on in the story. Over and over again, it just felt like the author was telling us what was going on instead of showing through actions, or better descriptive wording. At times it feels like the plot was lost in favor of depicting the trials and tribulations that the Deaf community experiences, but at a certain point it felt like the less of a romance and more of almost an autobiography of the author's' personal experiences.
My biggest nitpick when it comes to the depiction of race in books is if you can take one descriptor word away from the whole book (ex. Black, Latino, etc) and the character would read as white that is a problem. There is a huge difference between saying a character is a certain race, and actually coding them that way in the writing. (Huge missed opportunity to discuss race when the security guard incident happened!) I even flipped back to the the beginning to double check if it was in fact an all white cast, or if some of the characters were "supposed" to be BIPOC. Whenever this discussion comes up it's always a tricky subject, because often times people will say you should just be grateful for any representation.
I think my gut instinct when I finished reading was to rate it 5 stars, because getting this kind of disability rep in books is sadly still very rare. I learned so much from reading this, and have a better understanding of the Deaf experience. And while the book truly shone with how its depictions of what Lilah went through as well as the Deaf community, the other elements greatly overshadowed those bright spots. At the end of the day this isn't a book I would recommend for others, or even one that I could say I enjoyed.

Gahhhhhh! This book!!

⭐️Deaf/HOH representation throughout cast
⭐️Teen sleep-away summer camp vibes
⭐️First love, YA friends to more - lots of adorable awkwardness
⭐️Education about spectrum of deafness and deaf community and ASL
⭐️debut #ownvoices story

Quick, easy, heartfelt and charming read. Perfect for July with its summer camp setting and for Disability Pride month. Cute story, insight into deafness and deaf culture, bringing in some heavier topics that are handled well. I love True Biz and CODA and this story is tagged as CODA meets Jenny Han…yes, absolutely! Wonderful debut. Can’t wait to see what this author does next.

Thank you to Penguin Teen/Putnam for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

i’ve had a copy of this book for a while now actually. but unexpectedly this became my first read for disability pride, which was completely unplanned but very good timing. so yeah, i guess let’s talk about my personal draw to this book. i’m often very outspoken about being queer and disabled. and while i don’t talk about my disabilities often, they range from learning disabilities to chronic illness, along the spectrum. but i’m not hard of hearing (hoh) or deaf personally. my main draw to a book about a deaf and blind summer camp is, of course, because i am disabled, so i strive to read more stories centering disability, period. but also because my dad is actually hard of hearing.

it’s not actually something i’ve ever mentioned in any online book space, but it’s something in my personal life. he has some loss of hearing in his right ear that occurred in his early adulthood. and while he was fitted for a hearing aid, he actually chose not to wear it and hasn’t since well… at least my entire life. you have to speak to him on his “good side” otherwise he wont hear you and say “huh?” or “what”. he blasts music, tv, anything really. and you’ll often see him covering his ears in loud spaces. why am i talking about my dad, who probably wouldn’t consider himself deaf, when this book is about a teenage girl at a summer-camp for deaf and blind campers. well, because he honestly reminds me of lilah.

of course, they’re quite absolutely completely in everything else. but they share this common thread. and the way lilah interacts with the world, especially in the beginning of these events, it felt familiar to me. but also not, since well, i’ve got pretty damn good hearing myself. but seeing how lilah speaks to others, how she misses words. it gives me a bit better understanding of what my own parent might experience.

but anyways, genuinely enough about me. i think we understand that i was pretty excited to read this book. and i can say it was a delight. it obviously goes a bit heavy handed on the conversations surrounding the deaf community, and what makes someone qualify to label themselves as deaf. or the concept of learning from the deaf community if you want to learn sign. but genuinely, it was still nice to see lilah immerse herself. commit herself to try to learn the language of her community, even if she messes up in embarrassing ways. she learns and grows. she makes mistakes any person learning a new language does. but eventually she begins to hold her own, grow confident in her skills and it was lovely.

however, besides a few notable events (the tornado, the shopping scene), it really felt as though a majority of the book was pretty repetitive. i recognize it mimics the concept of the campers doing similar activities. hell, i get it. i worked at a specialized camp. i recognize that you do similar things. but i feel like we honestly didn’t get to see enough interactions with the other counselors besides isaac as much as i wish we did. i think we had the chance to see from such a lovely, diverse group of characters. each choosing to communicate in the world, in the deaf community in their own unique ways. we had glimpses, but i truly wish we learned more from them. i think that would’ve made me enjoy this a ton more.

overall though, this was truly a quick, interesting read that introduced me to a community i’ve always wanted more insight to. i’m excited to see where anna sortino goes in her sophomore novel, and i’ll definitely be following along closely.

3.5 stars

I haven't ever read any books centered around Deaf community and culture, and this was a really good look into such, from my limited knowledge on the subject. I was really immersed and came out of the book feeling much more educated on a subject that I've been interested in for a while. I love summer camp stories and the vibes of this one were really fun, and I enjoyed reading it for the most part.

However. I was really disappointed by the blatant irresponsibility of many of the counselors and the camp director. There's a scene in the book in which most of the counselors pack up, leave the camp, and go to hang out at a bar. Keep in mind that some of the counselors are underage, including the main character. The camp director allows minors to accompany the other counselors to the bar, where the minors are them allowed to drink. Then, the main character (a seventeen year old) is allocated to be the designated driver- without her glasses, at night, past the curfew on her license, with passengers who have all been drinking. This, to me, was absolutely not acceptable, and made more annoying since there are instances in the book where the main character is lectured about responsibility by the older counselors/director. :/

All in all, I might read this book again, but I'm not sure. My feelings are pretty mixed at this point.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review,

This book did such an excellent job of putting you in the main character's shoes and having you feel her frustration at times (and her joy at others). It was a beautiful book about finding community, learning what you want and how to advocate for yourself, and, of course, it had a veerrryy cute romance in it. As the author mentions in her author's note at the end, finding books with deaf characters is not common, especially books where they're the main characters, and this book is such a wonderful contribution to that small (but hopefully growing) pool!

I was thrilled to see another book with Deaf characters in a Deaf community. As a Deaf person, I absolutely loved Anna Sortino’s Give Me a Sign coming out on July 11th. An amazing YA debut with Own Voices about a summer camp for the Deaf. I could relate to many experiences that the main character, Lilah was facing or going through. Especially the struggle of being stuck in between the deaf and hearing worlds! Anna Sortino did an excellent job of educating the readers about the aspects of the Deaf community - the cochlear implants controversy, hearing aids, using voice/lipreading, ableism and many more. It clearly emphasis that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ for Deaf people. I loved this book so much - I will be recommending it for everyone to read! Thank you NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

I had a suspicion that I would love this book when I saw the cover and read the synopsis, and boy howdy WAS I RIGHT. This book was amazing! Sortino does an incredible job of bringing us into Lilah's experience as a teenager with a hearing loss that isn't really accommodated by her family, her friends, or her school. Even things like riding in the car with friends, seeing a movie in the theater, or doing schoolwork are difficult when you only catch a fraction of the words around you; Lilah clarifies that her parents aren't understanding that the lack of access at school is why her grades are so bad, too. This is the perfect set-up for Lilah's journey to Camp Gray Wolf as a junior counselor. Overall, this book was such a joy. I'm going to look forward to recommending it to anyone with even a remote interest in romance and/or Deaf culture.

One of my new favorite books! I read this in a day and could not read it fast enough!

"Give Me a Sign" by Anna Sortino is a delightful YA debut that took me on a heartwarming journey back to the beloved nostalgia of summer camp. Lilah's experience of feeling caught in the middle—neither fully identifying as Deaf nor meeting society's expectations of being hearing—resonated deeply with the reader. Sortino skillfully intertwines the challenges faced by the Deaf community into Lilah's personal quest for self-discovery, letting go, and finding her voice.

The characters in "Give Me a Sign" shine with vibrant personalities that make them feel like lifelong friends. Each one brings a unique charm to the story, and I found myself easily connecting with their journeys. Sortino has crafted such distinct voices that I could likely identify the speaker of a random quote out of context—a testament to the author's ability to breathe life into her characters.

Nostalgia hits hard when reminiscing about summer camp experiences. While my camp didn't boast hot British lifeguards like Lilah's, we had our own laughs and shared conversations. The lifeguard scenes in the book brought a smile to my face, reminding me of the genuine and hilarious moments that occur in those cherished summer camp memories.

"Give Me a Sign" beautifully captures the spirit of summer camp, fostering a sense of community, growth, and the excitement of unexpected connections. It is a celebration of finding oneself amidst a backdrop of friendship, romance, and the power of embracing one's unique identity. Anna Sortino's debut novel is a delightful and engaging read that will leave you with a warm, nostalgic glow long after you've turned the last page.

<i> Thank you Penguin Teen and PRH Audio for providing me a digital, and ALC copy of this book. </i>