Hurt Go Happy (by Ginny Rorby)

This is A REALLY AMAZING BOOK and probably one of my favorite reads! It is a bit mature with the topic of child abuse and Joey's alcoholic father, but the way Joey and her mother are able to heal together from that experience is both touching and inspiring. The gruesome scenes in the testing facility and the fact that *SPOILER ALERT* a valuable character passes away can be a bit hard for kids to understand. I've read this book five times in the past three years. Hurt Go Happy is a story I will read over and over again, and it's the book that has inspired me to choose ASL as my foreign language for high school!

Be warned, this book has a very very very sad ending. It does, however, leave the reader with a feeling of redemption and trumph. It features a thirteen-year-old girl who is whose father's abuse has left her deaf. Although most of have not experienced this, we can easily empathize with her because we can compare it to many of the traumas that we have faced in our own life. The book begins when the family has escaped from the father, and has moved of their car into a nice home. The mother doesn't turn out to be the world's greatest parent either, refusing to let her daughter learn sign language because she does not want people to know that her daughter is deaf. Instead, her daughter lip speaks which she finds very difficult. The daughter finds solace in two "accidental friendships" with a doctor and his sing-language speaking chimp, and they began to teach the girl sign language. The book begins to get emotional here, dealing with harsh, ethically challenging topics like animal testing and death. Through these events and her friends, though, the girl does become successful. Leaves you with an aftertaste of sorrow and encouragement to face all odds. YOU WON'T FORGET THIS ONE!!!

I think this is a very intriguing book. It really touches the soul if you bother to understand the meaning of the story. There are some parts that bored me a tad bit, but overall I adore this story; it brought me close to tears.