I really enjoyed this book about a teenager return to her Deaf summer camp to be a junior counselor after some years spent mainly in the hearing world. I learned a lot about Deaf culture and the variety of experiences people have within it. The writing felt genuine, which made sense since the author is part of the Deaf community. Disability rep is important--fitting that this book is releasing during Disability Pride Month on July 11/23. Thanks to NetGalley and the Penguin for the ARC! 4.5⭐

I love all books written about and involving Deaf community and cultures so I might be bias already. But I’m also picky. This book did a great job being informational about Deaf culture as well as bringing up the struggles of those who are hard of hearing. It is a wonderful book on identities and finding where you fit and owning your identity. It’s a great young adult summer camp romance that focuses mostly on the culture and less on romance, but it’s still on there. You hear about CODA, hard of hearing, Deaf, cochlear implants, hearing aids, Deaf kids of hearing parents, low and high support systems and more. This is a great book for those who want to learn more about the intricacies of identity in Deaf culture. The character development was perfect.

My thanks to out to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for this ARC of "Give Me A Sign" in exchange for an honest review.
True enough, there's the sweetest of of slow-to-develop summer camp romances here. And there's also that eternal, always relevant story of teens struggling to identify and define who they are, how they view the world and how to somehow realize their potential to thrive in it.
"Give Me A Sign" does include all those universal tropes.... which also equally exist in the world of teens with hearing and sight disabilities. So these young people not only cope with those intense joys and anxieties that come with adolescence but the unique physical challenges they face as well.
17 year old Lilah, whose deafness is not total, has strived to find her place amid the hearing and deaf worlds, which she's always fallen in between. Determined to at last fully master ASL, she spends her summer as a junior counselor at a camp for deaf and blind kids and teens. Before long, she finds hersel ever so tentatively falling for senior counselor Isaac...(and vice versa.)
As a former summer camper-counselor myself, I loved seeing all the expected, traditional camp adventures unfold the same way they would in any summer camp.....some humorous, some heartwarming, some hurtful and even one terribly traumatic incident. Unlikely friendships develop, romance blossoms and disabilities don't stop anyone from from enjoying the most memorable time of their lives....and isn't that what summer's all about for everybody?
I don't want to leave out crediting author Anna Sortino for making this stay at Camp Grey Wolf not just an instructive, immersive view of deaf culture but a compelling read too. And for never forgetting those vital components to a teen's happy summer.......tug of war, forbidden nighttime lake swims, campfires, and uh.....what am I leaving out......I'll think of it eventually, I'm sure.....

Give Me a Sign is a sweet, important coming of age story about finding yourself and community. Lilah is hard of hearing and struggling to find her place in the Deaf community, until she returns to her childhood summer camp and is once again immersed in both the struggles and joys of being deaf. This was a great introduction to Deaf culture and explored a lot of important topics.

CW: ableism, deaf discrimination, police brutality

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers for an advance review copy of this book.

“Simone says, but her mouth curls into a small grin. ‘There’s nothing wrong with reading romance, especially during the summer. They’re fun.'”

Give me a Sign by Anna Sortino
Pub Date: July 11th, 2023
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟(4/5)
Spice: (0/5)

Review:

Lilah is finishing her junior year of her mainstream hearing high school. She is hard of hearing and goes to her annual audiologist appointment to find out her hearing is getting worse. She decides to spend the summer as a junior counselor at Camp Grey Wolf where she spend a summer as a camper a few years prior. Upon arrival at camp she meets the senior counselor crew and finds out that this could be camps last summer. Lilah spends her summer falling in love, learning ASL, and saving camp.

Over all this book was very sweet. There is some dark realities that Lilah faces about being deaf in a hearing world. I truly enjoyed this book especially the deaf representation.


If you like:
- Deaf representation
- Teen summer romance
- Summer Camp

QOTD: What is your favorite campfire song?

Thank you to Net Galley and G.P Putnam’s Sons/Penguin Random House for proving me with an eARC of this novel.

Give Me a Sign by Anna Sortino (@annaksortino)

“Because that’s just it—I’ve been deaf since birth, as simple as that. And the older I get, the more my hearing loss will become a joke to some people, the way the elderly are ridiculed for needing hearing aids. I need to take pride in my identity, in whatever way I choose to share it with the world.”

🏕️✌🏼⚾️💘🦻🏼

FEATURING:
🦻🏼a Deaf protagonist learning to be proud of who she is
⚾️ a very cute and sporty Deaf love interest who plays baseball
🏕️a summer camp setting - my favorite!!
💕a lovable side cast of diverse Blind and Deaf counselors and campers
🏊🏼‍♂️adorable gay British lifeguards
👏🏼a wonderful look into Deaf culture and Deaf pride

Another summer camp story! Yay! They are some of my favorites to read this time of year. ⛺️

Give Me a Sign was so cute - but also incredibly powerful. Anna Sortino, a Deaf author, really dove into the nuances of the Deaf experience and it was really eye-opening for a hearing person like myself. 🙌🏻

The main character, Lilah, has hearing parents and never really got the opportunity to learn ASL. I’m learning that this is a very common experience for Deaf children born to hearing parents. She feels too Deaf when she is around the hearing, and not Deaf enough when she is around the Deaf community. This story also touches on the problems with hearing folks who aim to teach (and build a following/make a profit off of) ASL. Seeing Lilah become proud of her identities as a Deaf person was wonderful, and I really enjoyed the relationship and differences between herself and her younger brother, who is also Deaf. 👋🏻

One of the most powerful scenes in Give Me a Sign is when Lilah and Isaac end up in a violent altercation due to not being able to hear store clerks and being accused of shoplifting. TW, this scene does involve police brutality, and Isaac, who is Latino, is on the receiving end. There are also many instances of people saying they will pray for the Deaf and Blind counselors, believing they are faking being Deaf because they don’t “look” or “sound” Deaf, and generally being ableist as all hell to them. 😤

There is very little Deaf representation in media, and the world of books is no different, and this book is so important!

In an interview by Anna Sortino, she recommends a few other books featuring Deaf main characters, and I will definitely be giving them a read! They are:

📕Show Me a Sign by Ann Clare LeZotte
📗The Loudest Silence by Sydney Langford (Summer 2024)
📘On the Bright Side also by Anna Sortino (release date TBA)

Huge thank you to Anna Sortino, @penguinteen, and @netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful story ahead of its pub date! Give Me a Sign comes out July 11th (we are but birthday twins!!) 🎉

🖼️ cover art designed by Kaitlin Yang (@kaitlin.k.draws) & illustrated by Christina Chung (@christinaillos)

Even though I am on the milder end of the hearing impaired spectrum, this book spoke to me. From the frustration of sitting in an audiologist booth to the guessing what someone is saying because they are speaking softly or there is too much background noise. Lilah was born with a severe hearing impairment and uses hearing aids to improve her hearing, though she still needs accommodations at school to help make up for what she cannot hear. Lilah feels like she is in a middle ground between being deaf and fully hearing and doesn’t quite fit in either side. Faced with a summer full of lessons that her mother wants her to do before the next school year, Lilah decides to reach out to the summer camp for deaf and blind kids, that she enjoyed going to when she was younger, to see if she can get a job there. Read on as she figures out what being deaf really means for her.

I received a copy of this book to review through NetGalley.

My summer camp novel frame of reference is more, There’s A Bat in Bunk Five by Paula Danziger–this reminded me of that in all the best ways: new friendships, factions, and some good old fashioned teenage hijinks. Lilah has some hearing loss, as does her younger brother, and reads lips. She will be a counselor all summer at a camp for the deaf and blind, while brother will be spending two weeks of overnight. Lilah’s parents have put a lot of emphasis on implants and mainstreaming, but part of Lilah’s decision in coming to camp was to become more fluent in ASL. She’s frustrated by a tone-deaf hearing person who might be misrepresenting on her popular sign language YouTube channel, frustrated by mixed messages from other counselors, and stressed trying to fit in.

This was a little bit of a slog for me somewhere in the middle, possibly because I always want more romance, and the character growth was more important. Overall, it was a solid read and excellent insight into something I am not so familiar with. The ableist comments made towards Lilah and her friends, and an unsavory situation at a store, really made an impact to the narrative about what it’s like to move through the world as a deaf person. Author Sortino does a fantastic job not slipping into too much telling (it is a bit inevitable) or getting preachy. Many YA novels are about finding your place in the world, and Lilah does experience significant character growth and forms a more solid identity.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #GiveMeASign by #NetGalley.

This book was so good. I loved how the author represented when Lilah couldn't hear or understand something, it was very unique. I just think this book does such a good job of showing the different feelings that people have over being Deaf and I just really enjoyed seeing her journey. It was nice to see Lilah learn more about herself through being a camp counselor. Now I understand that the main focus of the book wasn't the romance but I am going to need a bonus chapter or something to tell me if they were maybe able to go to the same college and continue dating.

I received an arc through netgalley.

Give Me A Sign can be divided into two main elements —Deaf culture/representation and summer camp.

Author Anna Sortino — who is Deaf herself — does an excellent job diving into the varying degrees of hearing loss and their associated challenges. Her exploration of how those with hearing loss integrate into the “hearing” world is not only fascinating but eye-opening as to how frustrating things can be. Most readers will be surprised at the varying levels and will gain a greater empathy and understanding for the Deaf community at large. These parts of the book are authentic and moving.

The summer camp stuff, though, doesn’t have the same oomph to it.

Give Me A Sign is a slow-burn summer romance that kind of stalls. It just doesn’t read as if the author is excited about it as the rest of the book. The romance is fairly predictable, and the campers don’t really experience anything beyond being deaf or blind. It makes things feel a bit flat.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t read Give Me A Sign, but if you’re in it purely for story, I’d check it out from the library rather than purchasing it.

This is such a cute coming of age YA Romance! This story follows Lilah, who is hearing impaired and all of the struggles she goes through each day. I am hard of hearing myself, though nowhere near as severe as Lilah, and could definitely relate to many of the things she went though. I truly enjoyed learning more about deaf culture, sign language, lip reading and daily struggles. Lilah struggles with her identity and where she fits in the world as she isn't fully dead, but she also isn't fully hearing. I loved how grew, came to love her hearing as it was, learned more signs and advocated for her younger brother. I liked the summer romance, but I honestly could have done without that part and only read about the summer camp and all the things surrounding it. I will certainly be reading more from this author!

𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮:
• ya romance
• coming of age
• summer camp
• finding identity

TW: deaf discrimination and ableism

As a person who is hard of hearing - living an entire life as hearing passing - this book was an awakening for me. I related to Lilah so much, in so many different ways. I've always said that the hardest thing about being hard of hearing is that it's not a visible disability and people often mistake it for ditziness or rudeness or outright weirdness. I felt that in Lilah's story, in a way that felt very validating (if a little upsetting) and because of that, I could not put this story down.

It reads a like a YA story, but I think that the deaf culture representation alone made it feel like such an important read. I found myself occasionally frustrated by the love story - more due to the YA nature of the story than anything else - but the plot, the storytelling, and the writing completely held my attention and I really enjoyed it.

Give Me a Sign is a sweet, compelling coming-of-age story and I fell in love with so many things that lay between these pages. Lilah and Isaac (and a whole slew of scene-stealing secondary characters) charmed their way into my heart and I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to read this!

This was a cute YA summer camp romance with own-voice Deaf and hard of hearing representation. I liked the characters and their budding romance, and the communication struggles felt real and authentic.

However, I was annoyed that the main character seemed to not care about the kids and was only interested in her own socal life among the other camp counselors. I've worked at a lot of summer camps, some with junior camp counselors, and anyone who behaved like that would not be welcome back. Also, the underage drinking, encouraged by the assistant camp director, was not cool and in real life would get people fired.

Lilah is partly deaf, meaning that she doesn't belong in either the hearing or the deaf world. She has trouble with conversations, but is not fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) either. She takes a job as counselor at a deaf and blind camp. Will she be able to find her place?

I really enjoyed this book. The story was clear, not outstanding in that way, but easy to read and enjoyable. I especially valued how the author portrayed Lilah as a deaf person finding her way in the world. The way she was empowered and found her identity and her own preferences is very inspiring. It also gave me some insight in how difficult life can be, even though it is not visible from the outside.

Charming debut about finding your place and people in life.

I loved this summer read about Lilah, who doesn’t feel like she fits in ..anywhere. She heads off to camp as a counselor for deaf and blind campers and branches out finding her people AND finding herself. And maybe a love interest 😏

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read and review.

Give Me a Sign is a book about a teenager with hearing loss working as a junior counselor at a summer camp for the deaf and blind. Over the summer she learns ASL and discovers where she fits in the Deaf community.

This was a quick and easy read. I loved that nearly every character has hearing or vision loss, which isn't seen much in any form of media. It's nice that the author included different people living their deafness in different ways (no hearing, hearing aids, cochlear implants).

I look forward to reading more from Anna Sortino in the future.

CWs: physical assault, deaf discrimination, ableism, tornado (not seen)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Premise: Lilah, hard of hearing 17-year-old, goes to Gray Wolf Camp, a place that holds such beautiful memories for her, to train as a junior camp counselor. Lilah grew up attending this summer camp and feeling included and as if she belonged and now she wants to provide that same experience for younger campers. She is not fluent in American Sign Language yet so is also using this as a chance to fully immerse herself in the language so she can improve. This is absolutely a slice-of-life teen fiction story with a little coming-of-age, a little romance and a lot of generous lived experience of deaf/blind/disabled folks.

What stood out to me front-and-center were the friendships and connections that formed over the summer, especially between Lilah and:
-Natasha, who starts off as sort of a hard ass on Lilah for not fully knowing ASL
-Mackenzie, who is not disabled but has a huge social media following for showing off her ASL skills
-Isaac, her love interest, who graciously and patiently helps Lilah as she stumbles with ASL
-Phoebe, a teenage low-vision camper who may be interested in training as a junior counselor next year
-Ethan & Simone, her sort-of mentors at camp & senior camp counselors
-Oliver, a British lifeguard who rightly so makes fun of Americans lol
-Blake, one of Lilah's younger campers who has a cochlear implant & has never learned ASL

This book has a fantastic cast of characters, and even all of the ones that didn't particularly get too close to interact TOO much with Lilah were so much fun!

I cringed so hard at some of the ableist comments that others made to Lilah and her friends, and it reaffirmed the need to make our world more accessible in all aspects. I loved the author's note at the very end, and I hope to see (And seek out) more and more disabled representation in books.

cw: ableism, oralism, police brutality/aggression

Lilah, who is hard of hearing and uses hearing aids, struggles with feeling "not Deaf enough" and with her friends and parents' inability to accommodate her and constant insistence that she advocate for herself. But when she gets a position as a Junior Counselor at a summer camp for the deaf and blind that she grew up going to, she is thrilled to be immersed in the community and have the chance to improve her ASL. It doesn't hurt that there's a handsome male counselor there to help her improve her ASL....

I really, really enjoyed this story and struggled with how to rate it. I think some of the positives are that it is extremely informative (as a hearing person, I feel like I learned SO MUCH) without being preachy and still fitting into a narrative plot; Lilah is great, likable heroine; and it's a real coming-of-age tale. But that last one is also a con for me. I think I went in expecting a romance, and while there's certainly a sweet, seventeen-years-old style summer fling, this is not a romance. I also felt like the book tried to cram a lot of experiences and anecdotes into one novel. I don't want to list them because, spoilers, but I could have seen Sortino spreading some of the stories of struggles across multiple books and spending more time on general character, friendship, and romantic development. I do think the book concluded really nicely, though, and I never wanted to put it down. I think this book would be great for a younger high school student who is looking to learn more about the deaf community and wanting a coming-of-age story without too much of a focus on romance. I would certainly pick up another book by this author.

Thanks to Penguin Teen for my eARC and finished copy!

4 stars - 7/10

I firstly want to thank NetGalley for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Give Me A Sign is an adorable YA summer camp romance with amazing representation of the Deaf and HOH community. We’re following our main character Lilah who’s struggling in a very hearing centered world. Her parents and friends have made little effort to try and accommodate to her world and rather expect her to accommodate to theirs which puts her behind in school and makes it really hard for her to effectively communicate. School’s about to be out for the summer and while all her friends have jobs and plans lined up, she decides she wants to become a counselor at a deaf/hoh friendly summer camp she used to go to. We start to follow Lilah as she makes friends, becomes more comfortable with herself, learns more about her community and falls in love too.
This was a super sweet read and my favorite thing is absolutely the representation. Starting with the cover where we can see our MC signing and from the moment you start the book and even when you start reading it, the language used makes it very clear that the author isn’t just some outside trying to write about something they don’t know about. It feels almost personal and that’s confirmed when you find out the author is also deaf.
I loved the representation and I loved learning so much more about the Deaf community.
3 stars just because there’s a LOT of telling and not really showing in the narrative which makes the pacing weird sometimes. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters but thats no ones fault, I also have to accept that I’m not the target demographic for YA books anymore which is a tough pill to swallow for me.

I was a sappy, sobbing mess by the end of this book. Such a poignant read with such important perspective and commentary on disability in an able-bodied world, accessibility and deafness in a hearing world. The romance was incredibly sweet and i absolutely adored all the characters we met. Seeing Lilahs struggles with her own deafness, not only within herself but within her family and friend group, and the varying experiences that other Deaf characters like Natasha had was incredibly poignant. As a hearing person, I appreciated the explanations of the tools and nuances within the Deaf community intertwined with Lilahs own morphing perspective on her deafness as she spent more time at camp.