An empowering and satisfying romance.
When a hard-of-hearing college senior has trouble understanding a professor in a required class, she meets a deaf graduate student who introduces her to a whole new world. When she begins to fall in love with him, though, secrets from her past threaten their happiness.
Carli is hard of hearing, but her father’s disdain for what he sees as her imperfection and her family’s unofficial motto of Handle it on your own have made her feel shamed by her hearing loss. At the beginning of her senior year of college, though, she has difficulty understanding a professor with a big mustache using only her hearing aids; Reed, a deaf graduate student in the class, encourages her to look at options the school offers for hard-of-hearing students and helps her audit an ASL class, since she’s never learned to sign. Soon Carli and Reed are an item, and Carli is quickly enfolded into Reed’s circle of friends. For the first time in her life, she feels at home and appreciated for exactly who she is. But a lifetime of judgment and insecurity makes it hard for her to believe in love and acceptance—and then a visit to her family leads to a horrifying encounter with her father, and Carli learns a devastating secret that alters her hope for a brighter future. Meanwhile, Reed knows Carli’s strength and determination could get her through anything, but her slide into despair leaves him frustrated and unsure how to help. Brown offers a powerful look into the world of hearing loss in this emotional debut, though Carli’s constant internal conflict and refrain of “I’m not good enough” get a little excessive. Nonetheless, this is a notable and groundbreaking debut by an author to watch.
An empowering and satisfying romance.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-0624955-7-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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