"True Biz" by Sarah Novic

As a Deaf reader, I've read plenty of stories with characters who have hearing loss. Who wouldn't want to read books that represent me as a Deaf person? But time and time again, I've been disappointed by hearing writers who portray Deaf characters as stereotypes. These stereotypes are often inaccurate and harmful, and they do not reflect the diversity of Deaf experiences. These writers leave me feeling frustrated and angry at society's view of deafness.

It takes a lot of energy and work to undo these stereotypes in order to make progress in our lives and for the Deaf community.

This is why I applaud Sarah Novic's book True Biz. Sarah is Deaf herself, and she writes about the Deaf experience in a way that is real and authentic.

In American Sign Language (ASL) "true biz" is an idiom that means "literally", "real talk", "definitely", or "for sure".

The story focuses on three main characters:

• Charlie, an oral deaf girl with a cochlear implant who's failing the mainstream school and transferred to a Deaf school.
• Austin, a Deaf student who's a long-time resident at the Deaf school, from a Deaf family, is dealing with finding out his little sister is hearing.
• February, a CODA who's Administrator of the Deaf School who's dealing with budget cuts threatening to close the school, a Deaf mom with dementia, and a struggling marriage.

These characters, despite their completely different backgrounds, are all brought together at the school. Showing how each one dealt with their emotional shifts, family changes, romantic upheavals, and political threats in their own way and also together.

Even though this story is fictional, it is grounded in a lot of factual details, such as the experiences of different deaf people, the environment and culture of Deaf schools, the lives of CODAs (Child of a Deaf Adult), cochlear implants, and sign language.

I appreciated the way the author wove mini ASL lessons throughout the chapters, allowing readers can learn a bit of sign language as they went along. I hope this encourages readers to pursue learning more ASL.

Each chapter also began with the alphabet letter in ASL for the character that it focuses on, which was a helpful way to keep track of the characters and their stories.

As a writer myself, I've wondered how writing dialog in sign language would work and Sarah Novic solved this by having all signing dialog aligned on the right side. I'd never have thought of that!

I found myself relating to many of the characters and the experiences in the story, often finding myself nodding my head in agreement.

Like Charlie, I was also mainstreamed in a public school without accommodations and then switched to a Deaf school for my High School years. I understood the struggles to learn ASL, to fit in with other students, and about cochlear implants (I got mine in my 30s).

I hope when people read this book, they have a sense of what the Deaf community has experienced and continue to experience every day.

True Biz is a beautiful and raw story about the complex lives of Deaf people and shows a side not often shown to the "general public". I do hope it shatters the stereotypes and gives readers a better understanding of the different facets of the Deaf community and come to appreciate our differences instead of labeling us as "broken".