Hello, I'm Jenna.
This is ASL Stew.
(hand slap...♪♪♪)
Today I am by myself, no Jill.
The reason is recently we got a book 
and they asked us to give an honest review.
I thought, sure why not. I love reading!
However it's not really Jill's thing.
But I am definitely a bookworm.
So, the book is....
(shows Mandy Harvey's "Sensing the Rhythm")
So some of you might know who this is, Mandy Harvey.
She's from the show, I believe, America's Got Talent.
Whatever that show is.
I'm going to be honest.
I do not watch the show. I haven't followed.
The only thing I know is she's a famous singer,
songwriter, musician... whatever she's labeled.
But that's all I know, that she won the show. Which is awesome!
She knows some sign language which is cool.
But that's all I know about her.
I don't watch or follow that show or anything.
I don't know really much more about her than that.
So I guess my review is pretty much neutral.
It's purely from what I read and that's it.
I got the book and it's pretty short.
It's somewhere around 200 pages.
So I read it in a couple of hours.
Just didn't take me that long. It's a pretty short read.
It was an easy read. Very easy to go through.
So nothing too complicated.
One thing that I did really enjoy is 
I liked reading about her experience of when she went deaf
and how that felt for her.
She kind of went through a depression
and a stage where she didn't know what to do.
It was interesting reading that journey.
I liked reading the chapter when she was talking about
how she learned to sing new songs if she couldn't hear anymore.
What exactly was that process for her?
That I found fascinating.
It was really cool just seeing what she did.
So I liked that part the most.
So those are some of the things that I liked about the book.
Now, some of the things I didn't like...
Overall I was a little bit confused on her intention of the book.
It was kind of like a biography mixed with a 
self help/inspiration mixed with a how to.
So it was kind of all over the place and I couldn't really tell what the main purpose was.
What was the identity of the book.
So that was a little bit confusing to me
because there were so many different topics that she touched on.
So I guess I felt it was a little bit shallow and it didn't go too much in depth.
I think I would like to see more in depth about the topics.
Maybe the first book could be one specific topic
and then she could have gone into an different book
with more in depth on another topic.
Split it into multiple books.
Then have a more expanded version of each topic.
I think that would be more helpful for me.
But again that's just my opinion.
Another thing that I was kind of like... uhhhh
is from my understanding, she's late deaf.
I don't know how she identifies.
I don't know her experience within the Deaf community.
I'm not aware of that, which is fine.
But one thing, which I don't know
if she didn't have the right information or the guy...
uhhh... Mark Atteberry, the man who helped her, co-wrote the book.
He's a professional writer, so he probably knows all the word choices and what not.
Which is fine, but one of them 
or maybe both of them has some wrong information.
For example, they were talking about how Deaf culture is against being involved in music.
I was like, no that's not true.
There are a lot of different Deaf musicians like
Sean Forbes, umm...
Mike from Deafinitely Dope, and there's many, many more.
So Deaf culture and the Deaf community overall, 
there's no specific dislike of music.
I love music personally!
Of course there are going to be individuals who are against music
and that's just like any sort of group or community.
There's going to be people in support or against something.
You can't label an entire community in that sense.
So that I felt was a little bit too.... harsh.
I don't want to say harsh, but...
I don't know, I think it was going a little bit too far labeling 
the entire Deaf community as a whole being against music 
and being against singing and using your voice.
Which is not true.
They put that in the book and I felt it was a little bit...
it was too... mis-general information.
In another part they were describing what is the difference between 
capital D "Deaf" and lowercase d "deaf".
I felt it was an A or B, is how they put it.
I think it said "D"eaf means people who became deaf 
before age 2 or from birth and they have deaf parents.
I was like, no that's not true.
Culturally Deaf with a capital D has nothing to do with when you became deaf.
It's not about that.
And less than 10% of deaf people actually have
at least one or more deaf parents.
Less than 10%. So most people have hearing parents.
So it wasn't... it's not an A or B, "D"eaf or "d"eaf.
There's a lot of overlap in that.
It has a lot to to with your personal experience, your journey into the Deaf community,
how immersed you are into Deaf culture, and your sign language, so that.
It's all about an identity.
It has nothing to do with when you became deaf, 
do you have deaf relatives, or anything like that.
Some people do, but most don't.
So that kind of misinformation kind of took me aback when they put that in the book.
Cause most people who read this book, I'm assuming,
know nothing about Deaf culture and the Deaf community, Deaf identity, that sort of thing.
So it kind of made me feel a little bit ick about that.
It had some wrong information there.
There was that and I would say overall I think it's an OK book.
It's good for people who 
like to read some sort of inspirational book, like a biography. That type of thing.
Again it's an easy read.
If you're a big fan of her I'm sure you would like this book.
Like I said, I'm more neutral. I don't know much about her.
So I thought it was OK.
I read it once, but I wouldn't read it again.
Honestly I wouldn't purchase it.
It's not my thing. It's just not my preference of book.
But like I said, I'm not saying it's an awful book.
It just didn't match my preference.
I believe there was some wrong information in there
and like I said, her experience... some of that was cool to read.
So I guess it's kind of a mixed review in my opinion.
It's really gonna depend on the individual.
If you like that sort of thing, great.
If your a fan of hers, great, go ahead and read it.
If you're not, then I'd say maybe don't expect too much from it.
But... that's my review. Yeah.
So if you like this video, let me know if you want more book reviews, 
or movie reviews, or whatever!
I'm more than willing to do that.
Why not?
So definitely let me know what sort of reviews you would like me to do.
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Alright, hopefully see you in the next video. Bye!
♪♪♪
