Deaf book lover Sasha Waters reviews ‘Quiet Beautiful Things’ by Samantha Christy (BSL)

Hi everyone my name is Sasha Waters, I am profoundly Deaf and was born in Scotland. I am currently living in the East Midlands with my Deaf partner.

After a horrible childhood, I seeked solace in reading books. This allowed me to disappear away from reality and join in the many different worlds that the books had to offer, providing escapism and allowing me to join in their journeys and growth within their stories.

I was 12 years old when I received my first book and it was just at the right time for me to start enjoying my passion for reading. An advantage of reading books was also that it allowed me to improve on my own English Grammar as I am part of both the Deaf and Hearing worlds and I work in an area where English is a must for documentation/reports.

When I was a teenager, I started off with reading the Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal, about twin sisters in their high school and the various teenage happenings that occurred in their daily lives. Then I went onto reading the A Horse Called Wonder series by Joanna Campbell and that sparked my interest in horses which gave way to further escapism for me in my own personal home life, anything to get out of the house.

As the riding stables I volunteered at were a 1 hour and 15 minute bus ride away, I used the bus journeys to continue reading books to while away the time.  So I read a lot of Young Readers books to start with, then Young Adults as I got older.

Deafness is such an isolating condition, so without much interaction in real life at that time in my life when I started reading books, I was able to immerse myself into other people’s lives and I felt included and being part of their lives and family. As an adult, I am now into paranormal, mysteries and romcoms.

I’ve been re-reading the book that my Dad gave me when I was 17, called Stronger By Far, by Sandra James. Sadly it’s now out of print and I’ve worn down the book cover and the spine so I now keep it safe and when the urge to read it occurs, I am careful and gentle to turn the well read pages. It’s a gritty kidnapping themed book and the storyline is so tense and yet gentle towards the characters. I have many other books that are favourites too.

I wanted to tell you about a book I recently read called Quiet Beautiful Things by Samantha Christy and it’s a romcom. It’s the first book that impacted me powerfully as it has Deaf characters in it!

I came across this book by accident on Facebook where it was being advertised as a good book worth reading. It’s not my first book with Deaf Characters in it but it’s the one that showed so much of our Deaf Culture, the Deaf perspective and the advocating for Deaf children.

I felt I could strongly empathise with the main character Ellie. Although the Sign Language in the book is American Sign Language (ASL), the author’s depiction of the signs and demonstrating how the signs looks visually to the Hearing characters is written so well. It’s also so inclusive of our Deaf culture and in a sympathetic way to demonstrate the relationship between Deaf and Hearing peers.

To give you a brief summary of the story – A Hearing man finds out he’s a Dad to a little girl, who’s 4 years old, and it was discovered that the daughter is unable to communicate. She is non-verbal and it was assumed by the social services that she may be Deaf. The man’s family was very supportive of him wanting to take on this little girl and he does his best to communicate and express himself by gestures and drawings until a Mentor from the local Deaf school comes along.

The Mentor is profoundly Deaf and she teaches the Dad how to communicate with his daughter using ASL. The Mentor also communicates with Dad by texting when there is no Sign Language Interpreter around so both made efforts to communicate clearly with each other. The Mentor also teaches Dad ASL as well as teaching the daughter ASL too and uses pictures to explain links with the sign language.

The same Mentor also teaches Dad about Deaf awareness, and Deaf context, explaining how ASL isn’t like speaking in normal speaking English. Dad falls in love with the Mentor and it isn’t all smooth sailing due to past histories and miscommunications but it’s a very good storyline.

To be honest, I couldn’t find anything negative about it, it was so well written and understood from both perspectives that there was nothing that didn’t work for me.

I believe that this is the third book I’ve come across that uses Deaf Sign Language but it was so much more detailed about the Deaf world than in previous books I’ve read.

Sign Language is such a visual communication that it must be really difficult to put it to paper to explain the way it’s being used. Samantha Christy did an excellent job and she had Deaf peers who were able to assist in explaining the signs to portray it correctly in the book. She also posted a link on Instagram to a Deaf Book Club under @DEAFinitelyreaders which covers stories about Deaf Characters or written by Deaf Authors which I now follow.