Review of I'm Not Stupid I Have Hearing Loss

[Christell Lindeque]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "I'm Not Stupid I Have Hearing Loss" by Tracy L Markley.]

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5 out of 5 stars

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Having lost her hearing as a child, author Tracy L. Markley wrote the memoir I Am Not Stupid I Have Hearing Loss to share her story with others. Tracy may have been born with a hearing impairment, but she didn't learn about it until she was in her late 30s. Teachers told Tracy she had trouble learning because her parents split up, but the real problem was that she simply could not hear them properly. Because she spent so much time alone, neither her parents nor her siblings ever suspected anything was amiss. The author shares her thoughts and feelings throughout her journey with hearing loss in this insightful book.

From this book, you can learn what it's like to go through life with hearing loss and not realize it. She describes how she felt after getting hearing aids and how others reacted to her differently before and after she started wearing them. She offers her theories on why it wasn't discovered sooner and when it most likely occurred. This book explains the "Speech Banana" chart, which is a visual aid for the reader to look at. The results of two of her hearing tests were also illustrated.

My favorite part was being able to relate to the author's childhood experiences with her family and siblings despite not sharing her hearing loss. I also understand how it feels to have others think you're being inconvenient because of a problem you can't fix. I appreciated that, despite having gone without a hearing aid for so long, she made an effort to address the problem. The tale of her elderly client and her successful persuasion of him to purchase hearing aids was enlightening to me.

I feel terrible that the author had to go through all that when she was so young, and her brothers should have been more supportive. I did not appreciate how most people dealt with her, and now I can see why she wrote this book under that title.

I gave this book a perfect score of 5 out of 5 stars because I was able to identify with many of the author's feelings and because I enjoyed reading about her journey through hardship. It taught me things I didn't know before and piqued my interest in the topic of hearing impairment. I'm so happy for her that she finally fulfilled her dream of becoming an author, and reading about the author at the conclusion of the book was perfect. Since there were few errors and the book was so simple to read, I think it was professionally edited.

Those who know someone with hearing loss or who can relate to the experience will benefit from reading this book. I think this book would be helpful for educators to keep an eye out for signs of hearing loss in their classrooms as well.

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I'm Not Stupid I Have Hearing Loss
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[Kigen Valarie]

I can imagine how rare such an occurrence is. Reaching 30 years without discovering she has hearing implement shows how the people around her didn't pay enough attention. I'm glad she found a way to help herself and even enlight others about what she went through.