As a deaf-rights advocate, Nović writes a treatment on the deaf community and the challenges members of the marginalized group undergo. She addresses the multifaceted nature of the community and the history of American Sign Language (ASL). In essence, the novel incorporates characters who are part of the deaf communities and their unique experiences. Hence it is a story about forging an identity and place in the world in the face of adversities as an individual or a group.
The topic of deaf culture has in recent times become part of the mainstream discourse through award-winning films and literature. It has led to conversations about the complex and controversial relationship between the deaf community and the hearing world. The plot follows Charlie a deaf student with a defective cochlear implant thereby having to acculturate into the deaf school. It brings to question the politics and controversy around cochlear implants and the mainstream view of deafness as a disability. In the residential school, Charlie meets other deaf teenagers who learned sign language from a young age, unlike her who enrolled in an ordinary school. Moreover, the experience exposes her to the diversity within deaf culture including children of deaf adults (CODA) such as the headmistress February.
As a linguistic minority, the deaf community has to deal with the experiential aspects of their lives and the cultural extinction of their heritage. Hence the author concentrates on changing the minds of both the hearing and deaf communities to transform the conversation. Kirkus Reviews remarked, “Nović addresses a lot of topics here, from eugenics and racism to teen romance and middle-aged marital strife…The lessons in ASL and Deaf history interspersed throughout the text may keep the reader’s interest more than the story alone would.”
