The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Novic, Sara. True Biz. New York: Random House, 2022.

The novel is told by an omniscient narrator who presents the perspective of a focal character during each individual chapter. The first chapter is told in present-tense, as are the last seven chapters of the novel. Chapter Two is set six months before the events in Chapter One. Chapter Two through Chapter 60 are told in past-tense. At the ends of many chapters, documents from February’s Deaf History class are presented for the reader to view. In the first chapter, Headmistress February Winters talks to the police about three students who have disappeared from River Valley School for the Deaf: Charlie, Eliot, and Austin.

Six months earlier, Charlie’s father got custody of her and used his parental powers to take her out of Jefferson High and send her to River Valley where she was taught ASL for the first time in her life. Doctors told her mother that she would adapt to her implant better if she did not have ASL as a “crutch,” but this only resulted in Charlie being unable to speak or hear anyone with any accuracy because she could only decipher about 60% of what she heard through her implant. In addition to being enrolled in the full immersion school, Charlie and her father signed up to take ASL classes after school so they could communicate together. Her mother, a former musician and pageant coach, had no interest in learning ASL and thought being Deaf was an embarrassment for her and for Charlie.

February was worried about Charlie’s success because she was the only high schooler starting without any ASL. She knew Deaf children deprived of ASL could have many behavior and anger issues as a result of the frustrations of language deprivation. She decided to have Austin be Charlie’s mentor since he was fifth-generation Deaf and was considered River Valley’s golden boy. Austin began mentoring Charlie and developed a crush on her despite the fact that they initially had trouble communicating. However, after several weeks of full immersion and ASL lessons, Charlie started to feel at home in her new community. February had a meeting with Superintendent Swall and learned that he was shutting the school down because of budget cuts. Although she wanted to keep the school open, there was no way to do so.

Austin got a call from his parents and learns that his mother is in labor. When his little sister, Skylar, was born, his all-Deaf family was shocked to discover that the little girl was able to hear. In a reversal of the usual situation in which a Deaf baby is born to an all-hearing family, baby Skylar shook the foundation of Austin’s family. Austin got upset when his father, who was the only hearing member of the family, seemed excited that Skylar could hear. Things became more complicated for Austin’s family when Skylar began to lose her hearing. The doctors recommended a cochlear implant, and Austin’s parents thought this would be a good idea, especially when his father learned from February that River Valley was closing. Austin, who was never implanted, felt infuriated with his parents and sad for his sister.

Meanwhile, Charlie continued to get headaches from her implant and even fainted a couple of times. She worked on the school play, Peter Pan, with Austin and her new friends. On the weekends, she went home and sometimes snuck out to see her friend, Slash, who was an anarchist in a punk band and was planning to blow something up with stolen pressure cookers. At the first performance of Peter Pan, Charlie passed out on stage and was taken to the ICU where the doctors learned that her implant was defective and had leaked into her brain and electrocuted her. Her mother insisted that the doctors remove it immediately, of course, but then she began enquiring about whether or not they could install a new implant in Charlie's other ear. Infuriated, Charlie ran away and met up with Austin. She told him what happened, and he told her that his dad had told him the school was going to close. Charlie decided she wanted to stage a protest like the one she learned about in February’s Deaf History class.

As the novel catches up to the present-tense of the first chapter, Charlie, Austin, and his roommate, Eliot, sneak out of the school and drive to Slash’s house where they asked him and his anarchist friends to help them blow up the factory that creates cochlear implants. Slash and the punks agree to use their stolen collection of pressure cooker bombs to help Charlie and her friends blow up Edge Bionics. However, February realizes what the students are up to and goes after them without alerting the police to their plan or their whereabouts. She arrives just in time and stops the students from carrying out the explosion. She takes the students back to school, but she leaves the bombs with the punks and does not report them. A few days later, the punks carry out the explosion on the behalf of their Deaf friends.