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A review by thepetitepunk
Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
4.0
I read Speak about four years ago after seeing it lying around schools and libraries for many years prior. So, in other words, I read it almost two decades after its publication. I remember feeling…whelmed, to say the least. I could recognize its importance and impact, especially for a sexual assault book geared towards teens published in 1999, but as someone reading it in 2018, it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted it to be louder, to unravel more, but given the time it was published in and the fact that Speak draws from the author’s real experiences, I do think that novel was what it had to be.
Shout fills the gaps.
Given the fact that it’s a memoir, it offers more about Laurie Halse Anderson’s experiences with sexual assault, but it offers so much more than that. This is a book about anger, about healing, about breaking free from silence and why that silence had such a strong chokehold in the first place. It is a book that labels rape as rape and it is not afraid to call out why we get so scared to use that word. It is about violence, gender, family, social exceptions, coping, bodies, silence—everything you may expect to find in a memoir about sexual assault. But it also overs a side I wasn’t expecting: the power of literature, censorship, librarians, author talks.
Shout crushes years of silence through biting stanzas and bleeding pages. Recommended to anyone, regardless of their age, gender, experiences, etc, who wants to relate, to understand, to learn, or to heal.
I also highly recommend this one to anyone who has read Speak or any other Laurie Halse Anderson books. The author directly references these works, especially Speak, which offers some interesting insight on why those novels were written and the impact they had on Laurie Halse Anderson and others.
TWs: rape/sexual assault, bullying, victim blaming, abuse, underage drug and alcohol abuse
✧ ✧ ✧
≪reading 31 books for 31 days of july≫
╰┈➤ 1. intimacies by katie kitamura
╰┈➤ 2. convenience store woman by sayaka murata
╰┈➤ 3. shout by laurie halse anderson
Shout fills the gaps.
Given the fact that it’s a memoir, it offers more about Laurie Halse Anderson’s experiences with sexual assault, but it offers so much more than that. This is a book about anger, about healing, about breaking free from silence and why that silence had such a strong chokehold in the first place. It is a book that labels rape as rape and it is not afraid to call out why we get so scared to use that word. It is about violence, gender, family, social exceptions, coping, bodies, silence—everything you may expect to find in a memoir about sexual assault. But it also overs a side I wasn’t expecting: the power of literature, censorship, librarians, author talks.
Shout crushes years of silence through biting stanzas and bleeding pages. Recommended to anyone, regardless of their age, gender, experiences, etc, who wants to relate, to understand, to learn, or to heal.
I also highly recommend this one to anyone who has read Speak or any other Laurie Halse Anderson books. The author directly references these works, especially Speak, which offers some interesting insight on why those novels were written and the impact they had on Laurie Halse Anderson and others.
TWs: rape/sexual assault, bullying, victim blaming, abuse, underage drug and alcohol abuse
✧ ✧ ✧
≪reading 31 books for 31 days of july≫
╰┈➤ 1. intimacies by katie kitamura
╰┈➤ 2. convenience store woman by sayaka murata
╰┈➤ 3. shout by laurie halse anderson