Review: You're Welcome, Universe

You're Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had a little trouble getting into this story at first, but by the end I really liked it.

Julia is a deaf teenage graffiti artist who happens to be Indian-American and have two moms. Everything is great until someone paints a slur about her best friend on the wall of their school for the deaf, and when the administration drags their feet about painting over it, Julia takes matters into her own hands and covers it with her graffiti art. Unfortunately, her "friend" does not show the same protective loyalty and quickly gives Julia up when questioned about it, resulting in Julia's expulsion.

Julia then has to be mainstreamed into public school, where she has trouble adjusting and fitting in, and most of the other students and teachers make little effort, except for a girl that Julia calls "Yoga Pants" who she seemingly has nothing in common with. Eventually Julia and YP (the name sign Julia gives her) do become friends, but just when Julia think she has found a real friend, YP reveals she has been keeping a huge secret.

This is a story about friendship, trust, and forgiveness. Refreshingly, there is no real romance, just a crush that is another source of conflict between Julia and her former "best friend", and the focus is on developing friendships, learning how to tell real friends from the fake ones, knowing when it's time to let one friend go, and when to forgive another.

While I wish Julia's moms had a little bit more character development, I think the characters of Julia and YP were fairly well-developed. Julia is not always the most sympathetic character; she is dark and sulky, adopting a tough, gritty, "too cool for everyone else" persona that just rubs people the wrong way, but it is obvious this her way of protecting herself and rejecting everyone else before they can reject her. YP, on the other hand, is a very friendly and likeable character, and her openness and vulnerability is a perfect complement to Julia's dark edginess.

I can't judge the accuracy of representation of being deaf and deaf culture, so I will leave that to those who can. But the story is not really about Julia's being deaf, but about friendship, and expressing oneself through art. I would recommend this for anyone looking for realistic fiction that doesn't involve romance.

This book was the 2018 Schneider Family Award winner.

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