Every Word You Never Said (3) (A Noahverse Story)

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Skylar makes friends at school, but honestly there’s barely any development there. They’re just nice enough to sit with Skylar at lunch, and then they’re somehow super close. They were sweet and supportive, but honestly I didn’t care about either of them, and I also didn’t care when they got together at the end (was there even foreshadowing??? Afffff, whatever). Jacob’s friends were even less developed than Skylar’s, so, once again, I didn’t care at all. Firstly, the amount of pop culture references. It’s realistic that teens bring these things up in conversation, but honestly they served no purpose and just seemed cringy. The ending to this was just beyond sweet and uplifting and heartwarming. I loved the big plan Jacob came up with. I love me them together so much. Imani and Seth! Fantastic side characters who added greatly to the plot and complemented Skylar and Jacob's characters. Imani and Seth were not one-dimensional as some side characters unfortunately become, but instead they were so dynamic and memorable!

There was a lot of great representation in this book so that was a highlight of the story. The nonverbal main character was really interesting to read about.His work has won numerous local and international awards and can be found in Communication Arts, Design Indaba Magazine, Ad Vantage Magazine, bestadsontv.com, Contagious Magazine, Archive, The University of Pretoria’s Permanent Design Collection, X-ings: Shaping Culture Through Design Exhibition, The United Nations Gallery of Sustainable Communication, TEDx, Heso Magazine (Japan) and http://www.inpursuitofelegance.com The Author Resource Round Table on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_folder/116489?group_id=26989 Every Word You Never Said by Jordon Greene was a wonderful YA Queer Contemporary romance. It's a well-rounded story that's both extremely fluffy and heart heavy. Fluffy because the romance between the two main characters is precious, but the situations and hate they deal with are disheartening. This book is riddled with harmful unchallenged stereotypes. Jordon Greene's main characters say shitty and offensive things, and for what? To seem cool and interesting? You don't get a pass to be racist, misogynistic, ableist, and slut-shaming because you're gay. Sensitivity readers exist to call you out for this, but either one wasn't used or the first few drafts of this were rough. And after that it’s just the typical miscommunication thing. Skylar refuses to talk to Jacob for a while but then at the very end Jacob publicly professes his love for Skylar then they kiss and everybody cheers (that’s not a joke btw. There’s an actual crowd cheering 😶).

This book touched on so many important issues - clothing and gender, ableism and disability, sexuality, religion, homophobia, friendship, first love and not feeling good enough. And then we have the story itself, a battle of gender, sexuality, societal conformity, and religion. Seeing old friends! I really loved seeing certain characters play a role or make an appearance in this story. I really hope this is a continuous thing! That is all I will say on that :)

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Jacob’s character development focuses on his overcoming his biases and becoming an advocate (sometimes awkwardly). In the beginning, Jacob sees a separation between Skylar and the British-accented voice on his phone: “I find myself wishing I could hear his voice, like his actual voice, not his phone. As cute as he is, I bet it would be amazing.” We see the change slowly in Jacob as he realizes that Skylar’s AAC isn’t a burden or separate from him, the same way many abled people will say “I’m sorry” when someone uses a wheelchair, but other disabled people will see it as the freedom to move around painlessly. Most importantly, when Jacob and Skylar’s relationship experiences some turbulence, Jacob never stops advocating for Skylar’s causes and continues working with the local Pride Center to challenge the dress code that prevents Skylar from wearing skirts and dresses when he feels like it. Even Jacob’s friends at first are surprised to find out that he’s still making calls and participating when the issue doesn’t affect him directly, but then join him when they see it’s a cause he cares about. This book had a lot more homophobia / ableism / bullying than I expected. Not necessarily a bad thing – it’s probably realistic, unfortunately – I just wasn’t expecting it. Skylar Gray: The biggest thing for me was the fact that he in nonverbal, adopted, queer and has been bullied for all that and bounced around from foster home to foster home but still retained his kindness towards people.