Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson • 1999
Devastation Rating
trauma mental health loss literary fiction
Our Take
Melinda stopped speaking after something happened at a party, and Anderson makes you live inside the silence before revealing what made it. A novel that captures the isolation of trauma — how surviving something can remove you from the world of people who didn't — with devastating, restrained precision.
Appears In
► Mental Health in Literature — Raw and Unflinching ► Coming of Age — When Growing Up Breaks You ► Gun Violence — The American Wound ► Sexual Assault — The Silence After ► Eating Disorders — The War Inside the Body ► Trafficking and Exploitation — The Bodies the System Discards ► Foster Care — The State as Parent
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