Review: Anderson, L. H., & Carroll, E. (2018). Speak: The graphic novel.

LSSL 5385: Required Novels

Anderson, L. H., & Carroll, E. (2018). Speak: The graphic novel. New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux Books.

Originally published in 1999, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson has been a regular on both challenged and banned lists, as well as required reading lists. In this more recently published graphic format, the artwork of Emily Carroll makes the significant story of a young, victimized teen even more accessible to today’s readers. Because of the very nature of the protagonist's struggle, it is particularly well adapted in graphic form.

The illustrations are stark and harrowing as first person narrator and protagonist Melinda Sordino views her world as black-and-white, harsh, and unforgiving. From the very beginning, even the reader unfamiliar with this long-standing story can infer that something terrible has happened to Melinda during the summer before she now embarks on her high school career. As a result, she is an embattled outcast, not only friendless, but at times mocked and bullied. She chews incessantly at her lips, tries to hide in her own surroundings, and most indicatively and impactfully, she has virtually given up speaking, rarely verbally communicating at all with her peers, teachers and parents.

As the story progresses, the reader gains further snippets and insights into what has happened to Melinda the previous August at a back-to-school party, with alcohol and upper classmen present. Again, even the reader new to this particular storyline may have suspected a sexual assault, additionally aided by Anderson’s preface in which she discusses her own personal experience and motivation in originally writing Speak. However, it is no less moving to see Melinda’s journey through this medium, which really allows a view into her speechless existence, with minimal internal and external dialogue, and a greater focus on her vivid expressions and actions--even just simply shaking her head as opposed to a verbal response. The rape--a word this novel does not shy away from--has caused her to withdraw from everyone, even her own self-awareness, potential friends, and art teacher, Mr. Freeman, who shows an interest in her growth. When declining a simple invitation to spend time with a classmate, she acknowledges her inner conflict, that she is driven to protect herself in the only way she knows how, forced to view the world as “a dangerous place” because “you have to assume the worst.”

A quietly chilling tone pervades Melinda’s attempts to blend in, ignore others, and even ignore her attacker--termed IT--in the hallways, as she gradually comes to the painful understanding that she will never heal through avoidance and disintegration. Her message of resilience and finding her voice is as powerful as ever, updated here for a new generation of young adult readers with visual articulation and fluency, and a sprinkling of what twenty-first century teens might expect in cell phones and Internet references.