Misunderstanding to Madly in Love

This is one of the first books that I’ve read that’s had a specific hard-of-hearing character. Not a deaf character, but specifically hard-of-hearing.

Hearing aids don't fix ears, they only amplify sounds.

The Un-Arranged Marriage by Lauren Brown

In this book, both main characters represent something - Shaina (female) represents a person with hearing loss, and Mark (male) represents Demisexuality. This made the rom-com very unique - plus it had forced proximity, rivals to lovers, and adventure! I also loved that Shaina was the extrovert and competitive while Mark was the people-watching introvert.

Shaina and Mark grew up “hating” - and ignoring - each other. Their mothers (BFFs) were constantly trying to get them together - from a baby “bride and groom” photoshoot, to shared birthdays to shared Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s to family cookouts - it seemed never ending. For the reason with their family pushing them together, when they eventually did get together, they almost denied it due to their mothers’ meddling.

Multitude of Misunderstandings

The book was based on misunderstandings in the start of the book - Mark did not know Shaina was hard-of-hearing and Shaina did not know about Mark’s sexuality. Shaina also never heard anything Mark said (quiet-spoken) and Mark because he felt that Shaina was stuck-up, always ignoring him. When Mark finds out that Shaina was hard-of-hearing and she just never heard anything he said, it changes his perspective. He immediately set out to be louder so that Shaina could hear him.

Being forced to work together for the wedding competition was a focus for the book. There were a multitude of tasks from trips down childhood memories to an escape room along with escaping wedding and family drama that helped form a friendship - rather than rivals - between Shaina and Mark.

Outside of the relationship with each other, both have family relationships that they are working through - Shaina with not living up to her “perfect” brother and always being the accommodating one to try to hear, and Mark for his family not understanding his sexuality.

No Other Communication Methods

The one aspect that I struggled throughout this book is that neither Shaina - nor anyone else in her life - didn’t try any other communication methods other than “speaking louder” and wearing her hearing aids. Why did she not use ASL? Even when Mark was working to speak louder, she still struggled to hear him but no suggestions of “we could learn ASL” or anything.

A typical hearing person thinking she needed to adjust her communication, because the clueless hearing person couldn't be bothered.

The explanations of her hearing aids and their itchiness was spot-on - I’ve experienced both of those; as well as not removing them unless I was comfortable with a person.

I did really enjoy the romance (there is some spice), the hilarity of the wedding drama, and I loved how they cleared up communication issues. I will say that I wished there was the introduction of the character to ASL or other communication methods (texting, notes, etc.) but I also understand this is not every hard-of-hearing person’s experience.