2022: The most amazing perfectly written-for-me premise was partially ruined due to audism and ableism UGH

Okay, so right off the bat, I have to mention that I read the "original" version of this story, and so my criticisms apply to that originally published novel. According to Liese's website, there have been significant changes made to a republished version that (hopefully!!) tackles some of the ableism that frustrated me in this book. I really do look forward to getting my hands on a copy of the new and updated version of the story, but in the meantime, I can only review what I read.

This book started off with one of the most AMAZING premises, seemingly written *specifically* for me that I have ever heard: Willa is a collegiate soccer player, her heart set on making it to the USWNT, who spends her summers working at a bookstore and has a relatively short fuse (sound familiar?) She falls for Ryder, a HUNK from the Pacific Northwest who always smells of pine trees and recently lost most of his hearing due to meningitis. The two of them bond over a group project that forces them to go on hikes *swoon* and part of their chemistry is Willa's complete and total acceptance of Ryder, just as he is (as opposed to a majority of his family members).

There are so many good elements to this story: cute Harry Potter references, like citing "the emotional range of a teaspoon", great consent awareness from Ryder in a number of sexual circumstances, Ryder legitimately would take Willa's last name (and in fact inherited his last name from his mother), the soccer, the bookstore, the shower sex, the flannel, the PNW vibes, the evergreen scent AHHH it just did it for me! AND THEN:

Ryder gets cochlear implant surgery out of nowhere, and here's where it fell apart for me. It's a total pivot from the hearing-loss-acceptance journey of the first half of the book. Now, I'm not an expert on Deaf culture by any means, but even I know that cochlear implants DO NOT work the way they are portrayed in this book (for a better representation, definitely check out the film Sound of Metal, would highly recommend!) Also, it did not read true to me that Ryder's family, especially his *doctor parents*, would not have learned ASL for him. They literally take in a dying woman so she has a place to live out her final days; they are good people! They definitely would have done that for their son! There's this constant refrain of "Ryder is dwindling as a human, his world will not be whole again until he can hear" FALSE FALSE FALSE and a rather problematic scene in which Willa's mom forces him to speak and it's just rather uncomfortable. In short, this novel went from literal perfection to frustratingly ableist over a couple of chapters.

Other nitpicky things of note include how they seemingly skipped from being juniors to graduating without me noticing? Maybe there was a time jump that I missed in the audiobook, but I was confused. Also, so funny to hear the Seattle women's soccer team being called "Reign FC" as opposed to Seattle Reign or OL Reign, and it sets the book so squarely in 2019 for me (that really being the only full season that the Reign operated as Reign FC haha). And Willa definitely wouldn't have just been able to announce to Ryder that she had signed with Reign, she would have been a part of the college draft and there would have been a whole moment, that's not how it works! Lastly, there were certainly a lot of "I read so much and worked in a bookstore, look at my vocabulary!" vibes, but there were no books referenced? That was disappointing.