Review: When She’s Lonely by Ruby Dixon

I liked the complexity of the female MC in this book. On the surface level, you have a character who is isolated and not well likely. She is obnoxious to many and it would be easy to dislike her if you’re on the outside looking in.

But when you dig under the surface, you find a character who is dealing with deep trauma, a physical handicap, and a great deal of fear. She doesn’t trust in her new “safe” reality, and it shows a great deal of depth to how the author thought of these things because when I got to thinking about it, someone who had lived in relative safety her entire life would likely not handle it well when that was ripped away and replaced with slavery and abuse.

I also found it kind of cool when the author opened up about her own hearing issues at the back of the book. I have autism and sensory processing issues. I thought I had hearing problems for most of my life. I related to the character needing to ask someone to repeat themselves multiple times then just giving up when it made no difference. I’ve honestly had times when I stopped bothering to say “what” because there was no point. It would just annoy people and it wouldn’t help me get the meaning of their words.

I love how Ruby Dixon seems to have recently made a concerted effort to write more diverse characters of late, and this book is definitely a great example of that. And knowing that she based it off her own personal experiences with hearing loss was just the icing on the cake.