Laurie Halse Anderson’s breakout book, SPEAK, has a new 10th anniversary edition coming out, and Lenore (from Presenting Lenore) and Steph (from ReviewerX) have been doing an awesome series of posts in its honor. And now they are giving away 20 free copies!
Here’s what I wrote about SPEAK (spoiler alert!!!):
As boys get older, they usually stop reading about girls. For progressive parents hoping to raise thoughtful boys, I recommend Speak. The narrator is a severely depressed high school senior. As the story goes on, chronicling the small absurdities of high school along the way, we piece together that the cause is a date rape that occurred several months prior. In an interview with author Laurie Halse Anderson included in the book’s “platinum edition,” she says that she has heard from dozens of young men who liked the book but were surprised that someone would have such a strong reaction to a rape. It’s a good reminder that in the absence of stronger social movements affecting what people grow up knowing, literature can play a role in telling stories that need to be heard.
Seriously, if you haven’t read this book, you totally should. And if you have, Lenore and Steph’s posts have been a great celebration of it (they do a very good job of articulating the things I liked about it so much); you can find their whole series at the link above.
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February 28, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed our feature. We enjoyed writing it.
March 16, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Just reread Speak and had to comment on it. I was reading the interview mentioned in this post, and the part where she talks about how a lot of guys don’t get why this was such a huge deal for Melinda. I hope guys do read this book–it’s really moving. And very relevant.
March 16, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of things that are coming up at my school. A bunch of really horrible campus rapes have come to light (involving the fraternities and date rape drugs), and while many people are totally outraged, there have also been some really despicable comments in the campus press.
One of the things it’s been making me think about is how there’s no substitute for a grassroots women’s movement. There’s a lot more the university could be doing — and we need to demand it of them, in my opinion — but large numbers of women as well as men didn’t get what date rape was, or why it mattered, until there was a pretty serious movement that challenged things people saw as relatively normal. And in some ways, we’ve got backwards since then, I think.
(Ariel Levy’s book FEMALE CHAUVINIST PIGS — despite the awful title and much worse cover — is really good at documenting just how far backwards we’ve gone on some of these issues that involve day-to-day interaction and dating. So is Sharon Smith’s WOMEN AND SOCIALISM, which is less of a beach read and not focused on the cultural issues Levy’s is, but stronger on solutions. We’re bringing Smith to speak on my campus in two weeks, among other sorely-needed efforts given what’s happening here.)
But yeah, that part of that interview with Laurie Halse Anderson has really stuck with me. My friends are all sick of hearing me relate it
March 16, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Ah, that’s really awful, Elizabeth. It’s so sad when you realize how common it really is.
I made the mistake of reading some comments on the IMDb message boards, about the film version of Speak. There was a thread that said that Melinda was partly to blame for what happened to her and after reading a bunch of comments, my brain hurt. Ugh. I think the sad thing is that a lot of guys probably might read stuff like that and think that, though.
What I liked about Speak was the part where Melinda was thinking about what happened in her mind, and part of her is kind of blaming herself. But at the same time, mentally she’s thinking about what various talk show hosts would say (she was only 13, had been drinking, she said no, she was taken advantage of by an older male, etc.). It felt really authentic, and I hope a lot of guys come away realizing that this is a very real, very serious thing.
March 18, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Totally, Sadako. And it’s not even just about boys not understanding, but girls, too. Did you see that Boston study where all these young women were blaming Rihanna for her abuse? Really scary.
Here’s an article about this. I still have a lot of big questions about what challenging this culture actually looks like, in the context of a community like my own campus.
March 18, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Oh yeah–that stuff scares me so much, people blaming the victim and all. Sigh.
Hopefully books like Speak will maybe make guys realize that being raped *is* a really huge deal and that guys like Andy aren’t just being guys–they’re doing one of the worst things they can do to a person.