On the Bright Side, by Anna Sortino

For Ellie, living at a boarding school for deaf students was a godsend, helping her come out and thrive.  So, when the school closes and she's forced to come home and finish her senior year at home, it's hard to adjust to being the only deaf student at the public high school. And it's never been easy with her family.  Her parents are less than understanding about her needs and subconsciously favor her (hearing) older sister.  She can't wait until she graduates so she can get away from everything and everybody.

After a pretty rough introduction on her first day of school, the counselor arranges for chronic overachiever Jackson to help show Ellie around.  Ellie resents Jackson's enthusiasm despite his earnest (albeit awkward) attempts to ingratiate himself to her.  However, being a romance, it just takes some time and few more awkward incidents for the two of them to find each other and connect.  And along the way, we explore the many difficulties of building a relationship between a hearing person and a deaf one.

But there's more to the story.  Jackson has been experiencing random loss of motor control and sensation, and bouts of vertigo and nausea.  After some misdignosis and a harrowing scene where Ellie has to rescue him, the doctors eventually determine that Jackson has Multiple Sclerosis.  Faced with such a complex and terrifying condition, Jackson has to work through his shock, grief, and anger.  Ellie tries to help him, but it's a lot for a young love to take on.  Never mind that she has her own issues with her family to deal with.

It's a busy story with lots of issues (disability, prejudice, abuse, amongst others) that works surprisingly well and manages to bring up a lot about the experience of being hearing disabled.  It helps that the author is deaf and she draws heavily on her own life to bring in fascinating details (like the mistakes that beginners at ASL tend to make or the need to provide good lighting at parties where deaf people are attending) to fill out the story.  I enjoyed those little bits while appreciating a satisfying romance that, while not straying too far from form, still delivered an above average novel about two young people struggling with some major difficulties and overcoming them.  Eschewing an overly rosy ending, the story's issues and problems are addressed and we are left with a hopeful future for the two protagonists.