Laurie Halse Anderson's memoir is a profound and powerful exploration of memory, abuse, family, and the healing power of breaking a silence.
Interspersed with the #MeToo stories are anecdotes about her various books, but Speak is the primary one explored in the memoir. There's also a section dedicated to what she's learned from her millions of readers - particularly the teens and adults who've shared their own sexual abuse with her. It goes on to reveal the dream that introduced Halse Anderson to her Speak protagonist, Melinda, and to cover her college and early years as an aspiring writer. The book chronicles the author's relationship to her parents, her dysfunctional family and childhood in upstate New York, her troubled adolescence, and a life-changing year spent abroad as an exchange student in Denmark. The story stretches across Halse ("rhymes with waltz") Anderson's entire life but focuses on the impact of her own experience as a rape survivor and how that inspired the story of Melinda in Speak, which was published in 1999. SHOUT is critically acclaimed Speak author Laurie Halse Anderson's memoir in verse about her childhood, a sexual assault at age 13, and her subsequent coming of age. Readers who prefer audiobooks will enjoy that the book is read by the author herself. There's occasional strong language (including "s-t" and "f-ing"), as well as many references to rape and rape culture, but it's all teen appropriate as she attempts to empower young men and women to use their voices, advocate for consent culture, and support survivors of abuse. She recounts not only her own memories of sexual assault, but also those of many (unnamed) readers. Halse Anderson doesn't shy away from mature topics like alcohol and drug use (by adults and teens), domestic abuse, and most overtly, sexual abuse. Then she is finally compelled to write Melinda's story in Speak.
Written in verse, the book is also an overview of her entire life, from childhood in upstate New York to the devastating rape at age 13 to a formative year abroad in Denmark in high school, and later her college years and beyond until she's an aspiring writer and mother. Parents need to know that Shout is award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson's memoir that focuses primarily on the aftermath of being sexually assaulted as a young teen, how it inspired her to write her breakthrough novel Speak, and how many readers have made similar revelations to her since the book's publication in 1999.
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