Customer Reviews

Belonging (Flying Fingers Club)

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This is a fictional but realistic story of a teenage girl who goes deaf after a sudden, very serious illness.Although it never says for sure, I assume from little clues here and there that its supposed to be set in the Mid 1980's.The story is not dated though and is timeless.
The protagonist of the story-Gustie Blaine- may not be as perfect as her cheerleader friends, but she certainly had a lot going for her.
Her deafness is as shocking and jarring to her as it would be to anyone and to the characters credit, she handles it with a lot of bravery and grace.
The most central part of the story is that although she is the same person as she was before her deafness, eveyone around her treats her different. And most of the time, not very well.
Her friends all abandon her and her former best friends of many years is especially cruel.
An unsympathethic French teacher writers her an insulting, condecending note asking her to drop his class, even though she loves the language.
People either tend to treat her as an annoyance or totally ignore her.
Her Parents have no idea what she needs or when she needs it.
Gustie is very likable which only makes her struggle more poignant.

Luckily , though , she learns to find ways to communicate and start living with her deafness.
And she finds a supportive friend, Boyfriend, and Teachers who help her find her way.

This is a novel with important lessons to teach about bravery in the face of unfair,seemingly overwhelming odds, tolerance and kindness.

I found this book wonderful. It was a good look at the changes that occur in a girl's life when she becomes deaf after contracting meningitis. What I thought was especially well done was the internal conflict she experienced over "straddling" the deaf and hearing worlds, as well as the denial experienced by her parents about her hearing loss. If you can get a copy of this book, try to do it.

I thought that *Belonging* was an ok book. This book dwelt too much on Gustie's dealings with her newfound deafness.

At 15, Gustie encounters spinal meningitis, which resulted with her being deaf. Of course, intially, she deals with this consequence with anger. Next, she deals with her fluctuating hearing loss by trying to lip-read and experimenting with a hearing aid.

At the same time, her friendship with Sara, Dana and others have have changed. They are simply not comfortable with Gustie's deafness and do not want to bother with repeating themselves. However, she is not completely lost. She finds solace with her Latin teacher, her notetaker and her new boyfriend, who has a Deaf brother and sister-in-law.

There is no mention of sign language or the Deaf culture until the last quarter of the book. Even then, Gustie doesn't really take advantage of it except learning fingerspelling. She is hesitant about Deaf people because she has some stereotyped perception of the Deaf.

*Belonging* is about a teenaged girl's struggle with a hearing loss, which turns her world upside down. She loses some friends but gains new friends. Meanwhile, she has to adjust in order to stay on top of school. She's rewarded with a new boyfriend who understands her plight and gives her valuable insights. In the end, she finally musters up the courage to tell people, especially her parents, how she wants to be treated.

In "Belonging" this girl came up with a disease called Metingitis, she is now deaf and learns about deaf people. This book made me think that some people aren't as fortunate as us.