Some books are just heartbreakingly sad and yet you still find yourself almost compelled to read them. Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby is one of them. It tells the story of Jess, a young girl who is about thirteen when the story starts. Jess is mostly deaf after an incident when she was seven damaged her ears. While she can lip read and does so extremely well she does not know sign language. For whatever reason her mother refuses to let her learn and gets angry whenever it is brought up. One day while mushroom hunting in the forests outside their remote house in California, Jess meets their new neighbor. An older man who lives with a chimpanzee that he has taught sign language. Through her new friendship with the neighbors and determined persistence Jess decides to try and learn sign language anyway, even if that means making her mother angry.
This book is a difficult book to read as you can probably imagine. Can you picture being thirteen years old and having no easy way to communicate with the people around you? I would certainly struggle to live like that and yet Jess did so for several years. It is a difficult read because it deals with a lot of difficult topics such as being deaf or mostly deaf in a society that is not kind to people who are different. Struggling to communicate due to not knowing sign language. There are other difficult topics as well that are just as hard to read about. Despite the difficulty and the emotional reaction reading this will undoubtedly spark, the book itself is incredibly well written. It is remarkably easy to identify with Jess and understand her situation due to the skill of the writing. We, as readers, really get to see a fully fleshed out young girl who is just struggling to find a way to fit in and be like everyone else, as much as she can anyway. By the end of the book I really felt like I knew Jess and that she could just walk right off of the page and be a real person. Yet at the same time, this same skill level is also applied to the plot as the gradually developing tension between Jess and her mom about learning sign language really helps hit home the idea that family can be difficult and make decisions for unknown reasons. That trauma, of any sort, really does have a lasting impact in often unexpected ways. At the same time, the book also helps show just how important kindness and understanding can be as the chimpanzee who knows sign language is often shown to be just as empathic and understanding as the human characters and sometimes to be more so. All of this weaves together to create this absolutely heartbreaking but incredibly compelling story that I greatly enjoyed even though it was so sad. I am beyond happy to give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This book is a teen realistic fiction but an incredibly good example of that genre. This book is slightly tricky to recommend in terms of genre as it really only falls into realistic fiction so it would probably appeal mostly to readers who enjoy that genre. However, due to the general sadness of the work it may not appeal to those readers either. In terms of age it is primarily aimed at teens or older kids but it could potentially be read by any readers over the age of about ten. My personal recommendation is that every reader over that age should consider reading it as it might just show some incredible life lessons that a lot of us really need to consider in our day and age. Before you decide to read this there are a few things to keep in mind. This book deals with various difficult topics such as being deaf, inability to communicate, slight references to domestic violence and cruelty to animals. If you think you might struggle with those themes please be careful when reading this book or even when considering it. The book is great and I would love for you to consider reading it but be safe first. If you do decide to try it feel free to share your thoughts about it in the comments.