Sway (Book #1) by Jennifer Gibson

I grew up in this world: the world of bullies, classmates that hate you on-sight, people that glance your way and whisper behind their hands, teachers that roll their eyes and grow frustrated instead of doing their job.

It's the world in Sway...and then there's some good stuff. We follow a hearing impaired teenage girl through everyday life. There's no conflict/plot. It's just everyday life and what this girl faces and how she finds love in the middle of it. There's school, tornadoes, karate class, friends that aren't friends...

We never do find out why all those kids are whispering behind their hands and staring in her direction. We never find out why nobody came to her birthday party...just as we'd never know in real life. To this day, I can't tell you why kids who bullied me were giggling behind their hands half the time.

What I liked was how eye-opening this would be for someone who'd never been hearing impaired, never walked in our shoes.

"Well, it gets tiring. I work so hard at trying to follow conversations at school. Don't forget that I rely a lot on lip reading and watching body language. There's is always a lot going on at the same time so it's easy to miss something, especially if someone turns away from me or it's really noisy....By the end of the day, I'm really worn out..."

THANK YOU, MS. GIBSON, FOR POINTING THAT OUT.

Truly, hearing people don't seem to get it.

I didn't like...the excessive details about her day: where she puts her backpack, what she eats after that, what color of clothing she puts on. And as I said above, some things are left unanswered, but that's actually parallel to real life. However, it left the book feeling unconcluded. I wanted to see this chick get her sweater back, wanted to know what became of the pen pal, did the hockey players get justice served? The tornado...why was it there? Etc.

And where was the dad? I knew he was a professor and he was never home. He didn't even come to the hospital  He doesn't appear until the end of the book. I felt like this heroine was always alone--this isn't a complaint, but an observation. Sadly, many children do grow up with parents that are never around. I felt for her. But the ongoing lack of dad should have been an issue at some point in the story.

However, there is a book two. Perhaps the answers will be revealed.

I received this from the author in exchange for an honest review.