Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Signs of Attraction is about two college students who have very different histories and experiences with hearing loss. When Reed notices Carli struggling in class, he befriends her and introduces her to his Deaf friends. Carli and Reed quickly become a couple, but Carli's struggles to accept her hearing loss might undo everything. 
 The main characters have not only different levels of hearing loss but also different family histories and means of coping. 
 I found this book to be tough reading because of the high level of angst, but I thought that for the most part (how could someone not know about closed captioning?) it was very realistic in showing Carli's insecurities and sense of shame, and her journey to acceptance and a more creative, resourceful, and confident approach to her life. The book contains discussions about suicide and abuse, and also contains a scene of abuse that is quite graphic, so be prepared. 
 My most serious problem with the book involves Reed's back-story. Initially, Reed is nervous about starting a relationship with Carli. His friends end up telling Carli that Reed is nervous because the last woman that he dated falsely claimed that he raped her, although she backed down on the claim almost immediately. 
 Not only does this reinforce inaccurate and damaging stereotypes about women falsely reporting rape, it's not even necessary to the story. It adds a level of distrust between Reed and Carli because Reed is afraid of being betrayed again, but they already have plenty of problems and plenty of angst. The extra level of conflict is unnecessary. It adds to Reed's fears about being perceived as broken, but the story already established those fears because of his birth parents. If it does anything, it makes Reed, who otherwise seems like a pretty OK guy, seem like the kind of sexist asshole who thinks that all women are the same, so that if one woman treats him badly he can't trust any other women. It's tasteless and gratuitous and I'm knocking the book down a whole grade for it (from B+ to C+). 
 I was so sad to see this element thrown into a story that was otherwise so positive. I loved the fact that hearing loss was not presented as a uniform thing, but rather something that would affect every individual differently (in addition to Reed and Carli, we meet Reed's friends who also have various degrees of hearing loss). However, I did feel that this story needed one more round of editing - between Reed's back-story with the evil girlfriend, and Reed's adoption issues, and Reed's dad's death, and Carli's issues, there was a lot of emotional stuff going on and these storylines tended to suddenly drop out of sight to make way for the next round of angst. At its best, this was a good story about thriving with hearing loss. 
 - Carrie S.