You're Welcome, Universe

by Whitney Gardner

Paperback, 2018

Status

Available

Genres

Young Adult

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Children's Circulating

Publication

Ember (2018), Edition: Illustrated, 320 pages

Description

When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural. Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a "mainstream" school in the suburbs, where she's treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up. Out in the 'burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off--and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member EdGoldberg

Julia is Deaf and she's also a tagger. She gets expelled from school for tagging over a tag on her school building calling her best friend, Jordyn, a slut. Unfortunately Jordyn was the one who fingered her.

At her new school she meets YP, Yoga Pants, who tries to befriend her. Julia figures YP just

has pity on her and has no interest.

One day, Julia tags a school scoreboard, only to find the next day someone added to it, making it better. This starts a tagging war.

You're Welcome, Universe is a fun read about friendship, tagging, trust and more. Interspersed are examples of Julia's tagging. Enjoy.

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LibraryThing member electrascaife

A high school girl gets expelled from her School for the Deaf when she's caught for creating graffiti on the school gym wall. She struggles at her new school, with her new interpreter, and with her ex-best friend, with her potentially new best friend, at her job at McDonald's, and with herself as

she tries to decide whether she should continue to risk it all for her graffiti art. And then someone starts calling her out by painting on top of her tags, and she nearly loses it all trying to figure out how to negotiate this art war and discover who this new enemy is.

It took me a little while to warm to Julia, but overall I liked this story. I can't speak to the way in which the struggles of a deaf girl in a 'normal' school are portrayed, but from my uninformed perspective, at least, it seems realistic and not overly played or too dramatic, and the mystery of the other graffiti artist is really well woven.

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LibraryThing member mjspear

Julia is a graffiti artist and lives to tag (paint) She has two moms and is East Indian. She is also deaf. When she is kicked out of her special school, she must face a world of "hearies" (people with normal hearing). Julia is used to being in her own head and has problems reaching out to others,

complicated by her deafness. Her best friend, also deaf but with a cochlear implant, turns out to be not to be a true friend and Julia is drawn to, improbably, a former cheerleader (aka YP for yoga pants). At turns, funny, sensitive, and combative, Julia is a typical teenager with an edge (understandable given her disability). Her moms are refreshingly sympathetic. Adult characters are not mere stereotypes. Most compelling is Julia's voice which rings true. Julia's tag = HERE and, thanks to this great YA novel, she definitely IS. F-bombs, some sexual activity, and Julia's anger make this a book better suited for older teens.

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LibraryThing member readingbeader

After getting kicked out of her all deaf high school, Julia ends up in a tagging war with another grafitti artist. Julia's plans are to just be invisible and practice her art. Invisibility is hard when there is someone in class signing every word spoken. She reluctantly makes friends with a

"hearie" who learns to sign and speak to her. Both girls have issues, but if they can figure out what real friendship means to them, together they would make a good pair. I really liked this book and it's focus on street art and female friendships.

The writing was so descriptive. "I spot a red leaf here and there, pilot lights to the season." (p. 8)
And my favorite "librarianish" quote: "I want to tell her you don't read anything on Google itself, but whatever." (p. 182)

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LibraryThing member reader1009

diverse teen fiction - Deaf teen (who is incidentally East Indian-American w/2 moms navigates new high school and makes a new friend who struggles with an eating disorder); graffiti artists.

I am not a member of the Deaf community but based on other things I've read, this felt well-researched, and

the details--from not being able to read lips perfectly when people are talking too quickly or have an accent, to being insulted by ESL teachers felt real.

parental notes: lots of language (f-bombs), an ill-advised vengeful kissing scene, and oh yeah, some illegal graffiti. Julia doesn't always make the right choices but she does love her moms a lot, and in the end learns a lot about true friendship.

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