Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

True Biz by Sara Nović

10 reviews

good_names_dont_exist's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death of parent, Dementia, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Car accident, and Drug use

Minor: Homophobia and Vomit

saracree's review

adventurous dark emotional informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Homophobia and Violence

Minor: Racism

corriejn's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Ableism, Death of parent, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Car accident, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, Abandonment, and Medical content

Minor: Sexual harassment, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Mass/school shootings, and Child death

martinatan's review

emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a killer, heartfelt story! I loved the use of the chapter bumpers as diegetic one-pagers on Deaf culture, ASL, and Wikipedia articles. The ending and how it resolved formative conflicts in the three protagonists’  lives was so satisfying to experience. I loved that it served as a testament to direct action, while showing that the tradeoffs in taking such action are hard to ignore when multiple parties’ livelihoods are at stake.

This novel truly feels like a love letter to the Deaf community and disabled activists. The author does a wonderful job of incorporating different archetypes of Deaf experience that dispel any thoughts of monolith from Deaf ideologies. After reading this, I am more curious about other intersectional identities that were not covered related to race, gender, religion, and other disability.

The formatting of dialogue and illustrative chapter titles speak to the spirit of the term “deaf gain” as opposed to “hearing loss”—these visual and spatial tidbits enhance Nović’s strong artistic voice. Highly recommend to anyone seeking an earnest and important coming-of-age story.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Ableism, Body shaming, Death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Racism, Car accident, Drug use, Dementia, and Alcohol

Minor: Grief, Hate crime, Confinement, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Vomit, Classism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, and Abandonment

icapturethecastle's review

emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book opened my eyes to the dilemmas and resilience of the deaf community, and I learned a lot about their culture and history. Characters were real, raw, but loveable. Also enjoyed the boarding school aspect

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief and Death of parent

Minor: Medical trauma, Death of parent, Violence, Racism, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Medical content, Grief, Death, and Cursing

thehmkane's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Nigh perfect. Absolutely fascinating audiobook, too - the author recorded the sounds the signs make, and the sound plays as the dialog is read, to indicate a character is signing. I'm definitely going to need to check out a print copy, too.

I picked this up at the recommendation of Deaf, deaf, and hearing friends, but the Deaf endorsement meant the most to me. I'm pretty savvy to a lot of the history, but I learned a lot from this book. I appreciated the diversity within the school, and the diversity of perspectives presented. It didn't shy away from depicting difficult situations and complex dynamics.

An important contribution to the canon. Now can we get more Deaf books?

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Ableism, and Car accident

Moderate: Drug use, Bullying, Sexual content, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Homophobia, Classism, Racism, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Violence, Hate crime, and Genocide

Minor: Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Forced institutionalization

lacey_wi's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Dementia, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, and Sexual harassment

saucywench813's review

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book was an amazing insight into the Deaf community and brought up various topics such as bodily autonomy. I do have my qualms, however. The ending felt strange (with I'm not faulting the book for, I'm just not used to open-ended stories), and I didn't like Slash and his goons as characters and didn't see how they were relevant. I also felt that the issue with February's marriage was never resolved and didn't like how the book tried to make the Charlie-Austin-Slash relationship polyamorous when Charlie never once talked about it with either guy beforehand. I fully fault the book and not the character for that as she wasn't really dating Slash, but I do have a problem with it as it feels like the book is trying to justify cheating by saying "it's just polyamory" when it's not. Not to mention that I don't like how the book handles Wanda because it seems like it was trying to say that Mel was being unreasonable in her jealousy just because Wanda was married to a man. Bi erasure alert, marrying a guy doesn't make Wanda straight and it wasn't unreasonable for Mel to ahve an issue with their relationship.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Ableism, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Drug use, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Sexual content

Minor: Biphobia, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Racism

includes a "faith healing" where

a kid's mom has pastors try to "heal" his Deafness by pouring oils in his ear that leave a scar on his face

amykwrites's review

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

So much to think about in this one as a parent of a Deaf child. This one will stick with me. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Drug use, and Ableism

Moderate: Abandonment, Car accident, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Cursing, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Homophobia, Medical trauma, and Racism

scatfloyd's review

informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5

I really really enjoyed this book! I felt like it was an extremely educational representation of deaf culture, however I am not deaf or hard of hearing so I can only speak from a hearing experience!

I really liked all the different topics this book explored: racism in the deaf community, the ethical considerations of cochlear implants, what a failed implant can do to affect patients, the historic and current movements to eradicate deaf culture, and more. I also liked the "lesson plans" included at the end of chapters, it was a neat way to include more education resources, to make me think of how the world is set up to exclude deaf people, and how to sign a few words! I know some people don't like lack of quotation marks, but speaking convos in this book did not have them! I normally wouldn't like this, but I thought it was interesting in the context of the deafness and of how Charlie struggled to distinguish speaking conversations. As a reader it almost make the spoken words disappear a little bit which felt true to the character's experiences IMO! 

This book reminded me of Parachutes by Kelly Yang; it touches on a lot of different aspects of deaf culture without really diving into one topic in huge detail. I will say that it was more of an exploration of identity and a representation of different identities within deaf community with the plot falling more to secondhand! I don't think this is something negative, but rather something readers should know before going into it with different expectations!! 

I would definitely recommend this book if you are looking to expand your reading choices to include more deaf and/or disability representation or if you want to learn some more about deaf culture! 

PUB DATE: 04/05/2022. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC! 

a few CW/TW: homophobia (minor), death of a parent (graphic), repeated ableism (moderate), toxic evangelicalism (one instance, graphic), dementia (moderate), racism (minor/moderate), teen bullying (minor), medical malpractice (graphic), medical trauma (graphic)

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Ableism

Moderate: Racism and Dementia

Minor: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Bullying