Antony John

The main character in this book for young adults is deaf, which I love for a number of reasons. One of them is entirely personal: my husband has a hereditary hearing disability, and it has taught me amazing things about: the importance of the senses (and how much abled people take for granted); my totally evil tendency to get frustrated and yell at people who are disabled; how much easier it is to be married if one partner can’t hear the other most of the time; and Jim’s (nevertheless) show more totally accepting and easy-going nature.

In case you’re wondering, Jim does wear hearing aids, but they don’t totally compensate. He can’t hear if it is raining, or when the birds chirp in the morning. He can’t hear if a teakettle boils over, or when an alarm clock goes off, or nuances in conversation if there is a lot of background noise. He fakes it a lot, and his insensitive wife literally roars with laughter over some of the responses he gives that he thinks are appropriate given what he thinks he has heard.

In this book, the narrator and primary protagonist is more severely deaf than Jim; Piper, age 18 and a senior in high school, also has a hereditary disorder and has been functionally deaf since she was six years old. She ends up managing a rock band that calls itself Dumb: "For the record, I wasn’t around the day they decided to become Dumb. If I’d been their manager back then I’d have pointed out that the name, while accurate, was not exactly smart. It just encouraged people to question the band’s intelligence, maybe even their sanity. And the way I saw it, Dumb didn’t have much of either.”

As you can see from the above excerpt, the author has a lot of fun with the name Dumb, imbuing Piper with a sardonic sense of humor, a lot of moxie and courage, and the ability to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous teenagers.

Piper has her hands full getting the five band members to work and play together, and how she does so in spite of not being able to hear what they produce is really a wonderful story. But Piper has problems on the home front too: of her two hearing parents, her father refuses to learn sign language. Her younger brother Finn resents being her interpreter. And her baby sister Grace was born deaf but just received a cochlear implant with money her parents took from Piper’s college fund. How they resolve these simmering hurts and resentments forms the background of the book, which also has the usual coming-of-age elements, and a budding romance.

Evaluation: This very charming story has an ending that is probably happier than that which would occur in real life. But it isn’t entirely improbable, except maybe to Eeyore-channeling pessimists like me. I enjoyed it a lot nevertheless, and highly recommend it. (And those of you who love the Seattle music and coffee scene won’t be disappointed.) show less

I hesitated to read Five Flavors Of Dumb for many reasons. The cover seemed to cool to be true, and sometimes I find that intimidating! I read a lot of favorable reviews which you'd think that'd be a good thing, but oftentimes that makes me worry that I might have a defective gene and won't like it as much. Anyhow, safe to say, it was dumb of me to wait this long to pick up a copy because Five Flavors Of Dumb is everything but dumb.

Piper makes for an excellent narrator - and can I say that I show more love her? She's a little intimidating at first - quick to argue, slow to apologize or say thank you, deaf but definitely capable of speaking her mind. Which makes it hard to know how exactly to approach her. Granted, I cannot blame her for feeling angry at her parents for giving her baby sister a chance to hear or her dad refusing to learn ASL at all. If anything, Piper is a little passive-aggressive - and when she's gets aggressive, she gets rather brutal in her honesty. Yet she starts to melt when she becomes the "mother hen" to the band members. Socializing outside her comfort zone changes Piper for the better, and it serves as a turning point in everyone's lives as they start to make compromises instead of war.

Five Flavors Of Dumb is a little misleading in having you think there are only 5 flavors - or characters - to get to know. Prepare yourself to handle at least double that number. I think Antony John does an marvelous job at introducing each character and providing multiple facets to their personalities that literally blew me away. Piper's parents, for instance, almost steal the show away - and I desperately wanted to know more about them and their pasts. Her mom starts off as Piper's strong advocate, but slowly and unexpectedly turns against her. Her dad never seems to see Piper as Piper but someone disadvantaged, but sneakily redeems himself by the end.

How many flavors is there of dumb? I think Five Flavors Of Dumb will definitely answer that question quite adequately, and I'm sure the answer will vary from sweetness to tartness to bitterness to melts-in-your-mouth-goodness.

Not as edgy as I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone or teeny-bop as AUDREY, WAIT!, but just as enjoyable with a memorable narrator who can easily be the next best thing since Please Ignore Vera Dietz entered the scene. show less

Wow. Like OMG wow. This book just made it on my favorites list. It's got to be one of them best contemporary books I've ever read. I don't think I have a single complaint.
I love how this book was done. It's about a girl who takes on managing a band and she's deaf. And while we see the obstacles she has to face, the difficulties in being deaf, it's not all about that. That's just a small part of the whole thing. And I loved it like that. I loved reading about a deaf girl and her life without show more it being all about her being deaf. She did have some family issues to deal with and they were done so well. I really felt for Piper but yet saw both sides of the story. But the main issue in the book was her managing the band, Dumb. It's also about her finding herself, her inner strength and her kick butt attitude she's somehow had inside herself all these years. Piper was a true authentic character who I could understand and feel true compassion for. I could go on and on but really the only way you'll understand Piper is if you read the book.
The other characters were fabulous as well. Ed was a great friend and I loved how he would do anything for Piper. I also loved the touch of romance without it being a big theme in the book. Josh was a character that did a great job of infuriating me and the other band members each played their roles perfectly. I loved them all and how they all found themselves.
This book truly has so much going for it but one of my favorite things was Piper learning more about music. This being going to the house Kurt Cobain lived and died in, seeing Jimi Hendrix's childhood home, watching them on videos and reading up about them. Although Piper can't hear music most of the time (she has a tiny bit of limited hearing) she can feel it, and she can see it. She can see the emotions and feelings and everything that's going on in their movements and expressions. And since I was a huge Kurt Cobain fan and pretty much watched every video he ever did like 100 times, visited his house and every monument that's been done for him, well, I appreciated that bit of the story and it even made me cry a bit. What other characters said to Piper about Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix were some amazing words. And I loved that even though she couldn't appreciate their music herself, she could appreciate that others did and she cared enough to do her own research and find out more and see what a true musicians goals are. It's not about the money. It's about the music.
This book was so amazingly well rounded I didn't have one moment I wanted to put the book down. I actually picked the book up when I was feeling blah. No book sounded good but I was determined to kick that blah right out of me. And once I started this book that blah was gone. I could have sat and read the book in one sitting it was so good. Not a single moment of boring.
I think I could go on and on about how much loved this book. But really you just have to read it for yourself. What are you still sitting there for? Go buy it! show less

5Q 4P
Piper just became the manager of the dysfunctional, up-and-coming band called Dumb. Knowing nothing about rock, she's really just in it because she opened her big mouth at the wrong moment, not to mention she could use the money. Oh yeah - and she's deaf, so who knows if the band is really any good. Now she has to deal with: a self-absorbed jerk of a lead singer; a silent guitarist who may not actually have a personality, it's hard to tell; a nerd who also happens to be a rockin' show more drummer; an angry, green-haired girl; and the popular girl who loves the music, but happens to be rather talentless at the guitar. And Piper's home life right now isn't exactly smooth and easy either. But Piper is determined to prove to everyone that she can turn this band into a success, deaf or not. By turns hilarious and thought-provoking, this book goes to show that deafness does not necessarily have to mean disabled. show less