For our book club, DEAFinitely Readers, we completed the book of the month, "Dust" by Alison Stine. It was an excellent selection to start the year. Released on December 3rd, 2024, "Dust" delves into themes of isolation, language deprivation, and self-discovery.
"Dust" is a young adult novel featuring a partially Deaf teenager. The story revolves around Thea, her struggles, and her sense of identity. Her father isolates the family by opting to unschool his daughters, Thea and Amelia. Following a flood in their Ohio hometown, the family moves to a hot, dusty town in Colorado. Thea finds it difficult to adjust to her new environment, far from her friends and familiar surroundings. Her father seeks a simpler life without technology or connections to the outside world. As a result, Thea and Amelia lack access to education and social interaction. Their father was convinced the move was the right choice, believing he will succeed on the farm. What they didn't realize was that it would be a challenge. There was a shortage of water, dust was everywhere, there was no rain, and dust storms continued to occur.
When Thea's parents refused to acknowledge her deafness and tried to treat her as hearing, they missed an opportunity to teach her sign language and expose her to deaf culture and community. Now, she never learned sign language and has no connection to the deaf community. This caused her a lot of stress. Thea also struggled with lip reading, and she has many other issues she feels will affect her future. The author aims to make you dislike the father in the story, and I certainly did. It primarily focuses on his desire for control.
"I wonder what it might be like to live with my deafness out in the open. I wouldn't have to say anything to people. They could just look at me if they were perceptive and KNOW. Would that be better or worse than always pretending?"
"No one heard my silence.. I never knew when I would be lonely, but loneliness was always with me."
Residing in the dusty town of Colorado, known for the Alien Watchtower and the small community of Bloodless Valley, Thea is permitted only to commute between work and home. She is employed at a quaint cafe in town, working for Louisa. Over time, Louisa gradually becomes aware of Thea's hearing loss. Consequently, she assigns Thea to deliver food across the street to the Library, a place Thea is not supposed to visit. During the delivery,
Thea meets Captain the librarian, a boy named Ray who is around her age, Ray's great uncle Sam, and an elderly man named Elmer. She learns that Ray is deaf when he uses sign language to introduce himself. Thea, unsure of how to reply, recalls that she is prohibited from revealing her deafness to others. She never shared this with him.
" I was hungry for conversation, desperate for it. And I could follow much of what Captain said. He looked at me when he spoke. I felt a rare lift from being heard." .
" My parents had taught me not to say anything. To hide. To pretend I was fine. And i was fine. I was also different. I was like Ray. Here in this tiny town in the desert was the first person i had ever met who was deaf like me."
Louisa has been encouraging Thea to visit the library more frequently. Whenever Thea gets the opportunity, she uses the computer to email her friends from Ohio, and read books. The library has become her safe place. Captain insists that she needs a library card to check out some books.
"I needed Lousia to know for some reason. I needed her to understand, I did not have what Ray seemed to. I did not have another language. I did not have family - a mom, a great-uncle, she had said,--who understood me, who tried. Lost. I was lost. I don't know sign language."
Sam and Ray enlist Thea to join them in community outreach, where they visit people's homes and farms to assist with tasks like chopping wood or doing handy work. Through these experiences, Thea learns a lot about the people and the town. She meets a kind woman named Helen who gives her a prism. However, Thea is not allowed to have anything related to the outside world in her home, so she hid it from her parents along with a library book on American Sign Language. She finds solace in Ray's friendship and falls in love with him. Ray teaches her sign language, which offers Thea a new perspective. She shares this with her sister Amelia as well.
"I was learning two languages, one with my hands and one with my heart."
Thea observes that dust storms are occurring more often, and each time they seem to grow larger and more intense. Dust is everywhere. Her sister Amelia's coughs worsen each time.
As the sisters struggle to obey their father's strict rules and manage the farm, the water supply dwindles, making farming impossible. Each dust storm alters the air, making it heavier. It transformed the environment. Locusts arrived and devastated the town's crops.
At the library, Thea immerses herself in the extensive and harrowing history of the Dust Bowl, a catastrophic environmental disaster that gripped the American Midwest during the 1930s, particularly marked by the infamous event known as Black Sunday. This day, characterized by an immense and suffocating cloud of dust that blotted out the sun and wreaked havoc on the lives of countless families, serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of the land and the dire consequences of human actions. As Thea delves deeper into the accounts of those who lived through this period, she becomes increasingly anxious and concerned that such a disaster might strike again, particularly given the current environmental conditions that seem eerily reminiscent of the past.
Thea's mind races as she contemplates the looming threat of another dust storm, and she feels a growing urgency to determine her course of action. She is determined to convince her parents to take her concerns seriously, but as she grapples with her thoughts, self-doubt begins to creep in. She questions whether she has the authority to challenge her parents, who seem so set in their ways, and whether her voice can truly make a difference in their perception of the impending danger. The weight of her identity presses down on her; she is caught between the innocence of youth and the responsibility of awareness, struggling to assert herself in a world that feels increasingly chaotic. The tension mounts as a massive dust storm looms on the horizon, its ominous presence a stark reminder of the past's devastating events.
Thea's heart races as she considers the possibility of not reaching shelter in time, her thoughts swirling with fear for her safety and the safety of her community. Will the town, with its proud history and resilient spirit, be spared from the clutches of nature's fury once more? More importantly, will her parents finally listen to her pleas and acknowledge the reality she is trying to convey? Will her father, often the voice of authority in their household, finally hear what Thea is desperately trying to articulate? The stakes feel higher than ever as she stands at the crossroads of her childhood and the harsh truths of adulthood, ready to confront the storm, both outside and within her family.
"I am different though. Maybe it's alright if i feel it sometimes. Maybe it's wrong to ignore it."
"We found our ways to communicate. You just had to be thoughtful. You just had to be comfortable being uncomfortable sometimes. You just have to listen."
This book will pull at your heartstrings, as it did mine. I empathized with Thea and her journey to discover her identity, unsure of her place in either the hearing world or the Deaf world. Not hearing enough or Deaf enough. I adore the story, and as I read it, I frequently feel the urge to jump into the narrative and give her a hug. I love the bond she has with her sister, Amelia.
It was SO dusty! While the book itself wasn't dusty in the literal sense, the narrative certainly evoked a sense of dustiness that permeated the story. The author skillfully crafted a world filled with grit and atmosphere, drawing readers into the harsh realities of Thea's environment. The writing was exceptional, with the author employing vivid imagery and descriptive language that allowed me to visualize the swirling dust storms and feel the weight of the particles in the air. I felt as if I were right there with her, experiencing all the dust storms firsthand—seeing the way the light filtered through the haze, hearing the howling winds, and sensing the tension that such an unforgiving landscape can bring. Thea's journey through this challenging setting not only highlighted her resilience but also painted a poignant picture of survival and adaptation in a world where dust is a constant companion.
I also want to highlight that the author used blank spaces in the dialogue to represent the words Thea couldn't catch while attempting to lip-read.
While the writing was superb, I was disappointed with the ending; it felt hurried to me. The conclusion was more upbeat, but it didn't resolve any questions. Thea and her father talked, and everything was suddenly fine between them, which didn't feel realistic to me. It didn't address the water shortage or other issues raised in the story. I still have questions and wanted more. It seemed too easy, and everything was okay again. I wanted more realism. I give this book a rating of 3/5.
Just like Thea, the main character in "Dust", the author Alison Stine is partially deaf. You can grab this book on Kindle Unlimited and Amazon.
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