The Silence between us is a YA contemporary that features a deaf protagonist, Maya and her life at a new school in Colorado. Maya struggles with fitting in with the hearing kids at Engelmann in the beginning but eventually comes around to making a few friends. Having been around deaf kids most of her life, this new change brings forth a completely different experience for Maya.
I have always found YA books to be a little bit disappointing when it comes to writing characters. For instance, even in Simon Vs the Homosapiens agenda, although Simon was written really well, his friends and family had very little depth and development to them. I was happily surprised when I realised how beautifully the characters in this book were crafted. One more reason to pick this book up is, it is an own voices book and it makes it even more credible and true to its nature.
The book touches upon the various subtle harms hearing community inflicts upon the deaf community. Maya’s outrage at the word disabled having used as an insult, sparked so much pride in me for her. She stood up at every instance she was put down. And I really admired her for her courage and self-belief. She surely did remind me of Jane Eyre. Beau was really flawed but his development was brilliant. My favorite characters apart from Maya were Connor and Nina. They just warmed my heart to no measure. The plot was relatively fast paced and it reminded me of Wonder, although the latter is heartbreaking. This one really is just a happy book that will make you feel good about yourself while enlightening you on your privileges.
The writing was quite informal and very concise, which made it really easy to read. I didn’t realise I was reading a book after a point. I was just so engrossed in the book. One thing I learnt from the book is that sometimes people can be inconsiderate even when they know your pain and sometimes those who don’t know your pain can step up to understand you better. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 5⭐/5
Oliver The Puppet 