Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson has long been one of my favorite YA novels. It had a profound effect on me when I first read it, as well as during the semester that I got to teach it to high school students. So when I heard that Anderson was writing a memoir, I knew I had to pick it up. Told in verse, SHOUT is about Speak - and it isn't. Anderson's poetry is about formative experiences in her life - publishing Speak among them - but it's also about her father's mental illness, her own sexual assault, her year abroad, and the way all of our experiences, when taken together, make us who we are. SHOUT is a barbaric yawp, a reminder of the power of one voice that refuses to be silenced, and you should definitely pick it up.⁣
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TW: sexual assault, domestic violence⁣