melanie_page's reviews
1469 reviews

Some of the essays are short a personal, reading more like an op ed. Others go in depth, including works cited, which can read as dry compared to their snappier neighbors. Overall, an excellent book that covers the thought and history of Deaf people in the U.S. Each section has a theme, and then the essays are organized by chronological date, so you can see how opinions changed across the decades. However, I didn't finish this one before it was due back to the library, in part because it could be textbook-ish and easy to put down whenever I encountered a deep-dive article.

I appreciate that a deaf woman read her own memoir. While her voice is in the range that I have trouble hearing, I think it's important for people to hear stories of people from those people. What caused me to stop reading was this: I'm 20% in and the so far I've heard a few cute stories about teasing a bull (nothing happened) and an older boy who started playing a toy piano when there were older children waiting to do so. The stories feel meaningless; I wanted a book about a deaf-blind person conquering Harvard Law. According to other review, she only gives a brief passage to her time in law school, but that's all I came for.

I'm just really not into this. There's no clear setting. Relationships between characters are foggy. The language doesn't even make sense in some places, saying blood was like tendrils and then a cobweb in the same sentence. What does cobweb-like blood look like?

Too slow. Absurd, but not enough so to make it entertaining.

A great read not only about the Deaf community, but how the government reacts in a pandemic, and this was published in 06!