New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018.
371 p. : chiefly ill. ; 22 cm.
I am very pleased that a graphic novel adaptation of Anderson's groundbreaking YA novel, Speak, is now out. It's hard to believe that it has been almost 20 years since Speak came out. It is a powerful story of a freshman girl who is shamed and shunned for calling the police during a summer party. Melinda, the hero of the novel, also silences herself until she is finally able to speak her truth - she called the police because she was raped by a popular senior boy.
In the powerful introduction to this graphic novel, Anderson states that she first wrote Speak to "deal with the depression and anxiety that had shadowed me since I was raped when I was thirteen years old." She also notes that graphic novels were not the popular and available format for literature that they are now and that most of the social media now so prevalent did not exist back then. That made her story perfect for updating.
Sadly, her story's as necessary as ever. Even as I write this, the President of the US (admitted sexual predator ) has just mocked a rape survivor .
Speak has remained a novel that still circulates widely, and hopefully this graphic novel will expand the number of people who read it.
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