The Sign for Home

I'm not going to lie, I picked this up solely based on the assumptions I made looking at the cover. I thought it was going to be an adorable romance with a deafblind male lead. Yes, all of those things were present, but it was also so much more. There were moments that I cried, moments of intense anxiety, of mystery, and moments where I felt angry.
I loved the point of view shift from Arlo to Cyril. I loved the flashback scenes and being able to read with the asl sentence structure. I loved how vehemently CyriI advocated for Arlo, even to his own detriment. I felt like this book was so crammed full of experiences that the deafblind community goes through that it was almost too long. Almost, but not really. I'm torn because I really wanted and appreciated the variety of instances as there is such a lack of representation in any of the other books I read and media I consume.
I think the details about the day to day moments and the flashback moments were well thought out, but there were aspects of the story I didn't love. I think Brother Birch was a weak (if not completely quintessential) villain. Molly had a redemptive moment, but her reasoning pissed me off. I know people like Brother Birch and Molly exist, I just am sick of them being the bad guy archetype for every story. I also don't think the ending was thought out very well. It felt rushed and was obnoxiously convenient compared to the struggles Arlo went through just to get to New York. I'm glad he got to advocate for himself, but the fact that Shri's plan worked perfectly and they all ended up happy with almost no consequences was frustrating. I think this is a good book, but the ending and overarching conflict could have been given more time and attention.