I am officially on the Chloe Liese hype train now - a review:

Only When It’s Us is an enemies-to-lovers story featuring Ryder Bergman, a late-deafened man with an intense love of flannel and a distinct “lumbersexual” vibe, and Willa Sutter, a soccer phenom who is managing school, sports and a mother sick with cancer. They meet in a Business Math class at UCLA, or rather, they are forced together by their professor.

This book is a S L O W burn, but the fireworks at the end are well worth the wait. Beyond that, the story of grief and loss in this book is incredibly intense and very emotional. We have Willa’s journey with her mom through her cancer, and we experience much of Ryder’s fear, sadness, anger, isolation and grief as he adjusts to a world in which he cannot hear and slowly acclimates to wearing hearing aids and works with his audiologists to try to adapt to his new reality. Both characters live their lives in very emotionally shielded ways, so as they peel back layers of themselves for each other, we get to know them, too.

And of course, they start out as enemies, so there is lots of funny banter, needling, practical jokes and teasing. I loved Ryder and Willa in this book. They are both incredible people on their own, and together they are perfect.

Finally, I wanted to mention the note from Chloe Liese in the end of the version I read on ebook. She received feedback on earlier versions from the deaf community asking her to re-evaluate her portrayal of the experiences of late-deafened. So, she hired a sensitivity reader and worked with her publisher to make changes to the book in order to better account for Ryder’s experience. I really value that Liese was willing to edit her work to be more sensitive in her portrayal, and further, that she was so open about the changes and why she made them. Growth is cool. We hear so much about “cancel culture” when really all readers want is accountability and growth. We love to see it!!