Maybe Someday

I came to this one because a friend said it has a deaf character written with care and a romance that tries to be ethical about cheating, which sounded impossible. Maybe Someday was published March 18, 2014 by Atria Books, 384 pages in paperback, ISBN 9781476753164, author Colleen Hoover, first in the Maybe series. Sydney, twenty two, finds her boyfriend cheating with her best friend, moves across the hall, and falls for a deaf guitarist who already has a girlfriend. I read it in two evenings and spent a third thinking about sound.

Sydney lives with her best friend Tori and dates Hunter, steady and kind on surface. She works while in college, studies music education, keeps a tidy room. One hot day she hears guitar from a balcony across the courtyard. The playing is intricate and joyful. She listens while folding laundry. Then she comes home early and finds Hunter with Tori. The betrayal is double, boyfriend and best friend, in her own apartment. She leaves with a trash bag of clothes and no plan. A neighbor across the hall, Ridge, offers his spare room while his roommate Brennan is away. Ridge is the guitarist.

Ridge is twenty four, in a band called Sounds of Cedar with Brennan on drums and Warren on bass, working toward a record deal. He is deaf, reads lips well, texts to fill gaps, feels music through vibration and structure. He has a girlfriend of years named Maggie, who is warm, ill at times, and away for work. He tells Sydney he cannot be with her. She tells him she does not want him. They both lie in the way people do when they want to be good. Proximity does the rest. Shared balcony, shared kitchen, shared songs.

The collaboration is the heart. Ridge writes music but struggles with lyrics. Sydney writes words in notebooks no one sees. He asks her to help write for his band without telling the band she exists. They write at night with a whiteboard, a guitar, and a phone for lyrics. He feels rhythm in wood. She sings softly so he can watch throat and breath. Songs build line by line. How You Love Me Now, Maybe Someday, all the titles fans know. The writing scenes are tactile and sweet. No grand studio, just a balcony in Texas heat with mosquitoes. I believed the songs because I believed the process.

Maggie as the other woman is written with unusual grace for this genre. She is not villain. She is sick with cystic fibrosis, brave about treatment, loving Ridge since teens. She knows Ridge is distracted before he admits. When she visits, she brings food, laughs with Warren, hugs Sydney genuinely. Sydney hates herself more around Maggie because Maggie is kind. Ridge loves Maggie with history and guilt. He stays because leaving a sick girlfriend feels cruel. He leans toward Sydney because feeling understood feels rare. Both truths sit without easy ranking.

Sound and silence

Hoover did research on deaf experience, and it shows in small choices more than speeches. Ridge removes hearing aids at night and the world goes cotton. He misses jokes in groups and laughs a beat late. He watches hands on guitar necks for cues. He texts Sydney from the next room to avoid shouting through walls. He feels bass in chest at shows. Sydney learns to face him when speaking, to tap tables for attention, to sign a little badly and keep trying. Those details earned my trust more than any author's note.

Music as vibration is described with care. Ridge composes by patterns, mathematics of beats, visual tuners, feeling wood. He knows when a string is off by buzz against palm. Sydney sings into his hand so he can feel melody shape. A scene where the band plays without Ridge hearing crowd, guided by lights and nods, is thrilling and sad. He performs joy he cannot fully hear. The crowd loves him without knowing. I thought about access in art in ways I had not. Who gets to make music. How. For whom.

Warren and Brennan as roommates provide humor and friction. Warren is crude, funny, dating a girl named Bridgette who fights with everyone. Brennan is steadier, protective of Ridge, suspicious of Sydney on Maggie's behalf. Apartment life is beer, dishes, practice schedules, rent splits. Sydney cleans to earn keep and to calm nerves. She teaches Ridge's brother's kid a song once. Those domestic beats keep the love triangle from floating. Real laundry. Real noise complaints. Real rent.

The cheating question is central and Hoover does not dodge. Sydney was cheated on and then becomes the other woman. Ridge has a girlfriend and writes love songs with a neighbor. Both know it is wrong and do it anyway in small steps. Late night writing. Texts that linger. A hand held too long. The book lets them claim friendship while showing desire. When they finally kiss, it feels inevitable and awful. I judged them and kept reading because narration admits fault. Sydney calls herself hypocrite. Ridge calls himself coward. Those labels do not fix, but they keep sympathy honest.

Maggie's illness is handled without pity porn. Treatments, hospital stays, fear of being burden. She tells Sydney she knows about Ridge's distance and asks for honesty, not performance. A late hospital chapter where Maggie decides to end things with Ridge for his freedom as much as hers is painful and dignified. She chooses herself without cruelty. Ridge grieves and feels relief and hates relief. Sydney waits without demanding. That waiting, after months of pushing, shows growth.

What works and what strains

The songs work. Lyrics included in text read as poems that fit plot without stopping it. Maybe Someday as title track about timing, about loving at wrong hour. I hummed while reading though no melody given. Fans can find real recordings Hoover made with musician Griffin Peterson, which is a neat transmedia touch. The book stands without audio, but knowing songs exist adds glow. Writing about music often fails. Here process carries tune.

Sydney as narrator is likable and a little passive early. She lets Tori and Hunter define her, then lets Ridge define her songs. Her growth is finding voice literally and figuratively. By end she teaches, performs once, says no to Ridge until he is free. That arc is satisfying though slow. A middle stretch where she writes and pines while Maggie is away circles. I skimmed a balcony scene or two. The pattern, write, ache, text Maggie, ache, is the point about temptation, but repetition tests.

Ridge as deaf hero is representation that mostly respects. He is sexual, funny, stubborn, not inspiration prop. He hates being called brave for living. He wants a career, not pity. Some deaf readers have praised and some have critiqued aspects, particularly lip reading ease and music feel, which vary widely in real life. Hoover acknowledges range in notes. As hearing reader I learned and enjoyed, while noting I cannot judge accuracy fully. Own voices reviews are worth seeking alongside.

The love triangle ethics will divide. Some readers cannot root for cheaters even with remorse. The book asks you to root for Sydney and Ridge while loving Maggie. That is a hard ask. I managed because Maggie gets agency and exit, not death or villainy. She chooses to leave, thrives after, gets her own book. Still, months of emotional affair cause real harm the text sometimes softens with song. If you need clean romance, skip. If you can sit with mess and repair, stay.

Pacing is smooth for 384 pages. College, apartments, band practice, hospital. Short chapters. Texts and lyrics break prose. Dialogue carries. I finished fast and listened to the companion songs after. The Austin heat, the balcony, the whiteboard, all stayed. A story about listening that taught me to face people when I speak.

Content notes are adult. Sex with detail but not explicit porn. Language. Illness and hospital. Cheating as central harm. Suitable for adult romance readers. No violence beyond emotional.

If you like music romances with messy ethics and kind third parties, try it with the soundtrack. If you need faithful heroes from page one, look elsewhere. Sydney and Ridge earn their someday late, after Maggie frees them and they free themselves from excuses. That lateness matters. Maybe someday, not now while someone waits.

Balcony writing and band life

The balcony writing sessions deserve a closer look because they carry the best intimacy without touch. Ridge sets a whiteboard on knees. Sydney sits close enough to feel guitar hum. He plays a progression, stops, points to her. She hums a line, writes, erases. They argue about word choice through texts even sitting together, because sound fails. That workaround, texting side by side, shows adaptation as romance. Meeting where the other lives. Band practice adds pressure. Brennan hears new songs and asks who wrote words. Ridge lies and says old collaborator. Sydney listens from behind a door and hears her words sung by strangers. Pride mixes with shame. Her work lives but her name cannot. Warren's humor keeps pages light. He cooks terrible pasta, hosts game nights. Sydney does dishes to belong. Those rituals make the spare room feel like home, which raises stakes of leaving. Maggie's visits show what Ridge risks. She brings soup, remembers birthdays, praises unknown lyricist not knowing it is Sydney. Kindness praising its own wound. I paused there. The final honesty is slow and clumsy. Ridge tells Maggie in person. Maggie already knows parts. Sydney tells family in calls that go badly. No applause after harm. They sit with consequences. Band pauses. That pause lets the someday feel earned rather than promised. A late performance with Sydney credited had me tearing up. Crowd, lights, bass felt in chest. Music from stolen time becomes shared gift once debts paid. That transformation does not excuse theft, but shows what honest collaboration could be. If I recommend, it is with soundtrack and warning. Sydney should have moved out earlier. Ridge should have told Maggie before kissing. Those shoulds matter. The book knows and lets characters learn late. Late is better than never, though Maggie paid for lateness.

Warren, Brennan, and Maggie's exit

Warren as comic roommate with hidden loyalty needs more room. He teases Sydney about cleaning, about singing in shower, about Ridge staring. Beneath jokes, he notices when she cries and leaves beer on counter without comment. He defends her to Brennan when Brennan says she should move out to protect Maggie. Loyalty split by address. Roommates choose sides in kitchens. Warren chooses kindness to person in front of him while still texting Maggie apologies. That middle position feels real to shared housing. You live with who is there.

Brennan as bandmate and Ridge's best friend carries guilt as drummer keeping beat while singers lie. He books gigs, drives van, counts money. He knows Ridge writes with Sydney before Ridge admits. He warns Sydney that Maggie is sick and good. That warning, delivered awkwardly in laundry room, is the book's clearest ethical voice from a peer. Do not do this to a sick woman. Sydney hears and continues, which stains her. Brennan steps back from friendship without cruelty. Distance as boundary. Later, when truth outs, Brennan helps Ridge move gear without endorsing choices. Work continues. Friendship renegotiated.

Maggie's exit deserves praise for agency. Sick, loving, tired of being brave rival. She tells Ridge she wants a partner present, not guilty. She tells Sydney she forgives slowly and at distance. She keeps her treatment schedule, her job plans, her dignity. A hospital scene where she laughs with nurse about Ridge's terrible signing shows life beyond triangle. She is not cured or sainted. She is person choosing herself after years of choosing him. That choice reframes earlier patience as strength, not passivity. Leaving as love for self.

Sydney's teaching after adds hope. She tutors kids in music, uses Ridge's visual methods, faces students when speaking. One student, deaf, lights up when Sydney signs badly and keeps trying. That echo shows learning transferred. Privilege of hearing used to include. The book ends not with wedding but with classroom and stage credited properly. Work named. Love dated after freedom. Someday arrives as schedule kept.

Facts held: first published March 18, 2014 by Atria Books in the United States, 384 pages in paperback, ISBN 9781476753164, author Colleen Hoover, series Maybe book one. Summary follows that text.