You may have seen Sarah on Ellen or the Today Show, or seen her viral video on YouTube.  On September 26, 2011, Sarah heard clearly for the first time in her life, thanks to the Esteem® implanted hearing device.  For the first 29 years of her life, she heard little more than indistinct sounds.  In this book, she talks about her life on both sides of 29.  I have to say right now, though, I have no idea where the subtitle comes from.

Sarah went to regular school most of her school years.  She had amazingly supportive parents who did not want her to rely on sign language, so she’s really good at reading lips.  And she speaks just like anybody else, which is very uncommon for those who can’t hear the sounds they are making and can’t distinguish intonation.  But Sarah grew up “normal.”  She didn’t even know she was “disabled” until she was 21.

Sarah talks about how the world of her first 29 years differed from that of others.  She didn’t understand it at the time, of course, but in retrospect, she sees there were many advantages to being deaf.  She couldn’t depend on sound for emotional signals, so she became a master at reading body and face language, making her very empathetic.  Undisturbed by noise, she was able to focus really well.

Predictably, when she was able to hear ambient noise, it was really annoying to her because it was so loud!  Getting out of the car at a restaurant and hearing the street traffic was startling for her.  One of the stories I liked best was that first restaurant.  She says she thought the server was slamming the water glasses down on to the table.  And we don’t think about the noise of chewing and even swallowing, but it was all foreign to her.  Her first “hearing” food was a crispy salad.  Think about it.  Maybe soup would have been a better first food for her.  And then there’s that first night, when she finds out that her husband snores like a freight train.

One thing I found puzzling is that she says she didn’t know she spoke with a Southern accent.  But how did she even know what an accent was?  Maybe she could hear things like that, I don’t know, but the book doesn’t say.

There were things she glossed over that I would have liked to know more about.  For instance, when she hears music for the first time.  That was one of the big things she was looking forward to hearing, but it didn’t sound good to her.  Turns out, this was just an adjustment period; the device needed to be tweaked for a while before everything sounded right.  But she tells us that right away.  It was devastating to her, but she gets to the resolution so quickly that we get no sense of that.  Or maybe I’m the only one bothered by that because music is such a big part of my life.

This book does a very good job of communicating the world of the deaf, which is no mean feat.  And it’s a good story and well-written.