Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Signs
AUTHOR: Anna Martin
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 Pages
BLURB:
After spending most of his life in special schools, Caleb Stone now faces public high school in his senior year, a prospect that both excites him and threatens to overwhelm his social anxiety. As a deaf teenager, he’s closed himself off to the world. He speaks a shorthand with his parents and even finds it hard to use American Sign Language with people in his local deaf community. But Caleb finds comfort in his love of photography. Everything he can’t express in real life, he posts on his Tumblr.
Struggling to reconcile his resentment for his father’s cruelty with the grief of losing a parent, Luc Le Bautillier scrolls through Tumblr searching for someone who might understand his goth look and effeminate nature. When Luc reblogs a photo by Caleb, sparking a conversation, they both find it easier to make friends online than in person.
Luc and Caleb confront their fears about the opinions of the outside world to meet in New York City. Despite Caleb’s increasing confidence, his parents worry he’s not ready for the trials ahead. But communication comes in many forms—when you learn the signs.
REVIEW:
I… space… L-O-V-E… space… Y-O-U.
Of course he did. Luc wasn’t sure of many things in this world except that.
I could happily gush love all over this book but because that sounds somewhat gross and in the interest of remaining professional (I know my fellow reviewers probably just snorted at that), I will instead attempt to calmly explain just why I adored it so much.
Lucien Le Bautillier, please just call him Luc, is a high school senior living in New York City. He doesn’t feel like he fits in with any of the cliques there, but because of his emo appearance he at least has some similar looking kids to sit with. Luc suffers from insomnia and often spends the night on some form of social media, blogging and chatting to people online. One night he discovers a photo that he reacts strongly to and follows the photo back to the blog of eighteen-year-old Caleb Stone. Reblogging the photo leads to Caleb contacting him to say thank you, and from there the two boys quickly become the best of friends.
Caleb is deaf and, whether he likes it or not, that defines his life. Everybody focuses on the things that he can’t do or treats him like he’s mentally incompetent. The kids at school and even some of his teachers just ignore him and he doesn’t feel as though he fits in around other deaf people either. Aside from his parents, there are very few people he bothers trying to communicate with, so he’s ended up isolated and friendless. Chatting to Luc online opens up a whole new world for Caleb, as Luc’s friendship and support gives him the confidence to do things he’d never normally consider doing.
This book is classified as new adult. I can’t say I know exactly, the particulars of that classification, but what I expect I’ll get is a story that reads pretty much the same as young adult but with two older teens who are just discovering the wonders of sex. Actually, writing it like that sounds a bit pervy. But I love young adult stories, I’ve been on a real YA binge lately. I love it when an author can convince me that two high school sweethearts are going to be together forever. Or in this case, two teens that meet on Tumblr, with a bit of effort, could start living their HEA from such a young age. And the reason I prefer NA to YA? To be honest, I just find it way more believable. It’s like, once they hit eighteen then it’s okay to read about them having sex. And actually, I agree. Any younger than that and it seems wrong to hear about what they may be up to in the bedroom. But I use to work with teenagers and there is absolutely no way that any one of those boys would have said – no, I’m only sixteen, I’m just not ready for sex. So yeah, NA with older teens that can throw off those shackles of virginity without making me feel like a nasty perv is definitely my preference.
The relationship in this book is slow burn, Luc and Caleb don’t actually meet till about 20%, but even once they do start having sex the story remains very sweet rather than ramping up to sexy. Despite that, I think this book will appeal to readers who don’t usually read YA because the focus really is on Caleb’s deafness rather than the MCs and their schooling.
The characters were well developed and realistic. I find that a common downfall with this genre is the teens acting way too mature for their age. However, although Anna Martin has created two main characters that in some ways appear too good to be true, they somehow make perfect sense. They’re much more mature than most kids their age but that is understandable given the background of both characters. Also, given the fact that neither of them had many people in their lives that actually cared for them, the way that they latched onto each other was completely credible.
I appreciated that both boys coming out to their families, and any other lesser characters, was rather anticlimatic and not a homophobic drama-fest. Often YA books are filled with homophobic bullies, and while I appreciate that it is still a significant issue that some kids face, it’s nice to see a book with nothing but supportive parents and friends every now and again. Actually, I don’t know about everyone else but lately I’ve been finding a lot more of these YA books that have characters who experience these more positive coming out stories.
If you feel in the mood for a completely angst free, sweet love-fest of a story (though it’s assuredly more than just fluff) then this may just be the book for you.
P.S. – I’m all about the cover love on this one!
RATING: 
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