Feeling a little stuck in a rut and unseen and unheard by her family and friends, Lilah remembers the fun she had at the summer camp she used to go to when she was younger. On a whim, she reaches out to an old camp-mate and is able to score a job for the summer at the camp as a junior counselor. Maybe this is just what she needs to find a little piece of who she wants to be.

As the summer progresses, Lilah learns more about what it means to identify with Deaf culture and also discovers a little confidence in her abilities along the way. Through in a little romance, and her summer would be perfect!

This is a good introduction to Deaf culture and provides a little insight into what someone who is deaf would experience, including the negative judgements from those around them who feel like those who can't hear are somehow less-than. A great recommendation for fans of the TV series Switched at Birth. There are multiple situations that bring to light the need to look for ways to connect with others are how the world can be very difficult to navigate for those who cannot see or hear the communications going on around them.

I received a copy of this from the publisher via netgalley.com.

this made me miss summer camp when i was little so badly!!! the vibes were immaculate! it was so wholesome and i loved the deaf rep in it. it makes me want to learn ASL.

I did not want this book to end! I loved the flow of the story and I found myself reading a few pages everyday because it gave me so much joy. I'm a sucker for summer camp romance stories but I always find myself worried about how it'll end. But, this honestly felt like the most realistic way for the story to pan out.
I've only read a handful of stories featuring deaf main characters and I would love to read more! I understand that not one story is representative of a whole community, but I feel like I've learned a lot and that the representation does matter. I'll keep searching for more diverse stories and reading them.

"Often, when people are inspired by disabilities, what they’re really thinking is Wow, I’m so glad that’s not my life."

𝙂𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙈𝙚 𝘼 𝙎𝙞𝙜𝙣 𝙗𝙮 𝘼𝙣𝙣𝙖 𝙎𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙤

𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄:
For Lilah it's always been hard fitting in especially around people the feeling of being an inconvenience when you're hard of hearing or the inadequacy of not being deaf enough. Lilah is learning to be comfortable in her own deafness and feeling relevant without having to fit in a certain criteria.

It's a coming of age young adult novel exploring the issues about fitting in, feeling relevant and falling in love. I loved this novel so much. I loved how Lilah was determined to learn ASL, and try to make it more accessible especially to her brother. I love that it represents the deaf community also touching on other disabilities as well.

5 ⭐

Thank you for this arc, all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This was such a good read. Something about the cover and description on Netgalley intrigued me. This is perfect for high schoolers! But also anyone in general, in my opinion.

The story follows Lilah and her journey in discovering her true self and also becoming more aware of the struggles and issues within the deaf community. Not only is she working on herself, but she is also a junior counselor at a summer camp helping others navigate their journey as well.

So many lessons and situations that truly opened my eyes. Love being able to easily gain knowledge while enjoying a sweet story. This is a coming of age book with a sweet HEA of a relationship that slowly develops.

17 year old Lilah is Deaf, but has never felt Deaf enough. When she was younger, she attended Camp Gray Wolf, a summer camp for the Deaf and blind. She decides to apply to become a Junior counsellor this summer, even though she knows very little ASL. Her application is accepted, and she returns to the camp where she reunites with her old friend Isaac.

I thought this was a fun, cute story, with great Deaf representation. I listened to the audiobook version, and loved how when Lilah did not hear someone, it would muffle the audio. I thought it was a really great touch. I really liked the summer camp setting, and I love how Lilah found her place in her community, and finally felt like enough. The slow burn friends to lovers romance was super cute, and I liked watching them grow into their relationship. It did get preachy at times, but it wasn't too bad. The book is light-hearted for the most part, but does discuss some deeper topics as well, which I think were handled well.

This would be a great book to read during camping in the summer or a cottage trip!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

This book had an interesting premise, dealing with deaf/hearing impaired characters and a summer camp. While I enjoyed the setting and learning about deaf culture living in a hearing world, I just couldn't fully connect with the characters and story. The writing was fine, and I enjoyed the summer romance. I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy it more,


3 stars

As an autistic person, I try my best to pay attention to books with disability representation, and I try to read a variety of them. Still, I haven't come across a whole lot of books with Deaf representation, so I was very excited to see this YA contemporary being released!

This is such a good summer read! It's set at a summer camp for blind and Deaf kids, where Lilah, our protagonist, used to come as a child, and is now going to be a junior counsellor. There's a lot of camp vibes, centering new friendships and new romance, which was a really good time.

I really enjoyed the setting of summer camp, because through Lilah's eyes, we meet a lot of different people, which makes it clear that there are a lot of ways to be Deaf, and that there are a lot of different ways people can view their own Deafness. It was so great to see Lilah connect more with other Deaf people, and learn sign language as a way to be more authentic to herself, and to communicate with others better. It was so amazing to see her grow into her own throughout the course of the book.

I loved reading this book!! The deaf and CODA representation is such an underrepresented and underrated side of storytelling and I thoroughly enjoyed the way the story was told. I loved the writing style and found it easy to get into and lose myself in the story. I also loved the characters and their young adult journey. This book was perfect!

Give Me a Sign is the perfect summer read. Taking place at a summer camp made me think of the days where I would spend a lot time outside., enjoying nature. There was a lot of different representation of Deaf people so anyone who is Deaf can feel seen. This is the first book that I have read with Deaf representation which we need more of. It was great learning more about Deaf culture and topics that I never heard of.

The romance was super cute but I wish we got more moments with them.

I loved this book so much! I was completely invested in the characters and couldn’t put it down. This book is perfect for people looking for a cute YA romcom that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. It’s a great book with great disability representation. As a disabled person myself, I always enjoy seeing other disabilities get represented in books and media, especially when the author is also a part of the disabled community. Overall, this is a well written book that is very enjoyable to read. I would recommend this book to anyone that loves cute romance books with characters who get to find themselves.

this was a very sweet and charming story about a deaf girl who just isn’t quite deaf enough for some people. the representation of deaf culture was well done from my perspective and i thought it was beautifully written.

I liked this a lot! This is a wonderful debut about Deaf culture is fun and sweet and made me want to go to summer camp! It is heartwarming, thought-provoking, and manages to balance the heavy with the cute very well. I look forward to seeing not only what this author does in the future, but to seeing more books with Deaf representation.

4.5 stars - I loved the nostalgic summer camp vibes in this, and it had a good mix of Deaf representation, as well as side characters with depth.

I believe I already reviewed this on Goodreads, so if it's a duplicate, one can be deleted. Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for my review


This was a great story aboout the very real struggles faced by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing commuity every single day. I belong to this community as Hard of Hearing. This was a coming of age story of a young woman who is profoundly hard of hearing. She wears hearing aids which help but her hearing is getting worse. She has a younger brother who's hearing is worse than hers. Their familiy isn't actually willing to learn ASL so they decide to learn for themselves while at a "deaf camp" Also thoughtfully covered was the topic of CIs CIs can be controversial, and not do not restore hearing, but change the input for hearing.

All and all a fun summertime story that tackles a serious subject with humor, romance and fun.

A darling YA book that opened my eyes to the world of hear disabilities! I loved the love story and all the characters. Very well done

<i>I received a copy of this story from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

I loved this book! It should be required reading in school. It's sweet and youthful but grounded in an unfortunate reality -- Anna does a wonderful job of balancing the two. I love learning about other cultures so reading a story centered around Deaf and hard of hearing characters was delightful.

All the characters were beautifully done, even Mackenzie who made me cringe so hard. I appreciate that she learned from her mistakes but too often people like her don't. Each character was whole and real and human -- none of them felt two dimensional or like a caricature.

Lilah's search to define her identity is one almost everyone can understand and empathize with. But members of marginalized communities will further empathize with the idea of being "enough". Am I deaf enough, dark enough, queer enough? It's an important conversation to see fictional characters having because it helps us do the same in real life.

I cannot wait to see what else Anna writes!

Book Review for Give Me A Sign by Anna Sortino.

I know my sign isn't perfect and it's definitely not ASL, I know, but I really enjoyed signing my review!

Definitely check out this book. thank you to Penguin Teen for my copy!

I really loved this book. The representation of the deaf, hard of hearing, and visually impaired characters was great. It was really interesting learning about the different difficulties people with these challenges face on a daily basis that we don't think about. I loved seeing the relationships in this book and even the little romance. I also love that the author chose to represent different types of hearing struggles as well.
I definitely recommend checking this book out. Now available!

And again, for the record, I haven't ever taken formal sign classes so I'm just learning like everyone else, not trying to teach anyone. I am conversational at best. I absolutely love sign and love when I get to use it. I started learning when I was about 7 when I had a deaf friend in my karate class. It was such a huge part of my growing up, with friends and at church, and I honestly wish I used it more.

#qotd : Do you speak another language OR What are you reading this week?

#sign #signlanguage #givemeasign #annasortino #bookreview #signedreviews #bookreviewer #deafrepresentation #dual #hardofhearing #visuallyimpaired #representation #netgalley #penguinteen #reviewcopy #yafiction

It was a great read and I really enjoyed the story. There were many things I've learned about the deaf community in this book. It's a sweet, coming-of-age story about learning to love yourself just as you are. I highly recommend it!

I love that this is a summer camp book. It really delivered the atmosphere, relationships, and outdoor adventures that you’d expect to find in a summer camp book.

I’m not Deaf, and I don’t have anyone in my life currently who is, so I don’t have any experience with Deaf culture. This book was very welcoming and helped me feel both immersed and oriented in what the characters were experiencing.

One of the camp counselors is not Deaf, but she positions herself as an interpreter on her social media channels, even though she is still learning ASL herself. Her behavior and beliefs trigger a lot of conversations among the campers and other counselors. At first I worried a little bit that she would kind of be positioned as a sort of one-dimensional character to stand in for all the ways hearing people get stuff wrong.

That’s not what happens, though. I mean, she does get some things wrong, for sure. There are several really cool conversations about how her behavior makes other people feel, and some conversations with the wanna-be interpreter herself that were really deep, too. The relationship with her also becomes an opportunity for Lilah to consider the unsatisfying parts of relationships with other hearing people in her life and what might change if she advocated for herself more effectively.

I loved Lilah. At the beginning, she’s scared and uncertain and so not sure what to do about the parts of her life that aren’t working. She remembers camp as a safe haven, and a place that helped her feel more confident, so she decides to try to get a summer job there.

At the job, she really blossoms. She helps some of the campers. Makes new friends. Gamely navigates new ways of doing things. She also falls for a boy. The whole romantic thread of the story is super sweet, too. It’s the best kind of summer romance.

There was one scene in GIVE ME A SIGN that really shocked me. I wasn’t expecting it, and Lilah’s panic and frustration were palpable. It’s a really good scene, but it was also heartbreaking.

Altogether, though, this might be one of my favorite summer books this year. I loved it, and absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a great summer camp read or a book featuring Deaf characters.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.