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Book Reviewed by:A searing poetic memoir and call to action from the bestselling and award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson!
Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before.
Searing and soul-searching, this important memoir is a denouncement of our society's failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts. Shout speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice - and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore.
Excerpt
Shout
shame turned inside out
Sisters of the torn shirts.
Sisters of the chase
around the desk,
casting couch, hotel
room, file cabinet.
Sisters dragging
shattered dreams
bruised hopes
ambitions abandoned
in the dirt.
Sisters fishing
one by one
in the lake of shame;
hooks baited with fear
always come back empty.
Truth dawns slow
when you've been beaten
and lied to,
but it burns hard and bright
once it wakes.
Sisters, drop
everything. Walk
away from the lake, leaning
on each other's shoulders
when you need
the support. Feel the contractions
of another truth ready
to be born: shame
turned
inside out
is rage.
Shout is a brilliant mix of raw and refined free verse that captures vulnerability and strength. It is a must-read for teens and adults alike...continued
Full Review
(597 words)
(Reviewed by Adrienne Pisch).
Released in 1999, Speak was Laurie Halse Anderson's first novel and also her most controversial. Melinda Sordino, the protagonist, is raped the summer before her freshman year of high school at a house party. She calls the police but is unable to verbalize what happened, leaving the scene before they arrive. The police bust the house party, and Melinda is hated by all her classmates. She almost completely stops speaking but begins to heal through a project for her art class.
The novel was not expected to succeed. Halse Anderson says that her editor tried to manage her expectations at the time of its release – maybe she would sell 3,000 copies in three years, and then the novel would go out of print. But 20 years later, it has sold...
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