There's only one possible word I can use for this story. CUTE! It was so cute. Despite dealing with a few tough subjects, like Jake's accident and Sam's living situation, Keary managed to write in a lot of happy moments and a lot of concentrating on the good stuff, making this story a perfect summer read. 
 Jake has been pining for Sam for most of his school life by the looks of things and I could feel the tension in the air when he decided, drunkenly, 'Yeah! I'm going to go tell Sam I love her!' As this was at the beginning of the book, I just knew that BAD THINGS were going to happen very soon. And they did. Jake gets his vocal cords ripped out and descends into depression. Very breifly. Then goes back to school and guess who's going to be teaching him ASL? Oh yes. 
 Sam's story surprised me. I was expecting there to be something going on with her but I didn't guess just what it was. It really added a lot of tension in the book and brought Jake and Sam together a lot more. I really felt sorry for her and what she had to deal with and I could completely understand why she got so annoyed with Jake for moping about not having a voice, as frustating as it may be! 
 I loved the ending. It was perfect and wrapped everything up really well without making me feel like I NEEDED another chapter in their story. There were sweet moments, soppy moments and funny moments and I'd definitely like to see a copy of this on my shelf.