Laurie Halse Anderson

A searing poetic memoir and call to action from the bestselling and award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson! Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before. Searing and soul-searching, this important memoir is a denouncement of our society's failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts. Shout speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice-- and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore.

Shout

Ryan 

2.5 stars

i'm glad that this book is going to be out soon where many people will find this enpowering and raw from her experiences as a survivor and persevere through her challenges and her setbacks that symbolizes such female empowerment. some were powerful to portrayed that but some did dragged a bit and sort of lost the central theme of "shout" (literally shout, not the title).

more to come

A New York Times bestseller and one of 2019's best-reviewed books, a poetic memoir and call to action from the award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson! Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before. Described as "powerful," "captivating," and "essential" in the nine starred reviews it's received, this must-read memoir is being hailed as one of 2019's best books for teens and adults. A denouncement of our society's failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts, SHOUT speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice-- and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore.

SHOUT

Melissa Palmer

Book #23 Read in 2019
Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson

This is Anderson's gritty memoir, told in prose and verse. It details her dysfunctional family, her rape as a young girl and her taking her power back. It was powerful. Fans of her books will eat this book up.

Lara Engle

Laurie Halse Anderson is a treasure. She is a voice for the voiceless and in Shout she is finally sharing her truth. In part one, we learn about her youth and the events in her life that lead to her becoming a writer. In part two, we hear the stories of how her books (especially Speak) have given her a mission. We hear about people who have shared their stories with her. We learn about her advocacy for the me too movement, her teaching about consent and sexuality, and her condemnation of censorship. Finally, in part three, we get a bit of her heart with stories about her adult self and family and other personal thoughts. There's a lot of truth and heartbreak mixed in with this biography in verse. I think most people could relate to something in here, especially people who feel alone or like they don't fit in. I personally love her defense of literature that deals with tough subjects and its inclusion in school libraries. Students want books that feel real and relatable. A "safe" book is a book nobody wants to read.

Flavia Louise

This was very well written and gave a good insight into the author's life.

Alexa Jade

Actual rating: 3.5 stars. 

“This is not my resting bitch face, this is my if you touch me you die face.”

The second part of this book was definitely my fave! Part one’s stories were so fast moving that i couldn’t really connect to them.

Caroline Lewicki

What I'm about to say is not an exaggeration: this book was absolutely everything to me. Having the opportunity to meet Laurie Halse Anderson before reading the book and hearing her read from it totally enriched my experience. 

The poetry is beautifully written. Laden with pain and rage, but also a call to action. Listen to each other, believe each other, support each other, speak and shout for each other. I'm so glad I purchased my own copy of this because I'll be rereading it often.

Sahi K

CW: rape, sexual assault, harassment, drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse, effects of war and ptsd, depression, gaslighting of survivors, rapists not facing consequences

Like everyone else who has read any literature on sexual assault, I’ve known about this author’s pioneering book Speak but have been scared to read it because I didn’t think I was prepared to handle the content. But when I saw that this book was nominated for the National Book Award this year and it’s also written in verse, I decided to give it a try. 

This book is essentially a memoir - the author’s honest and raw exploration of her life experiences through poetry - which made me sad, angry, hopeful and angry all over again. We get to know her family very intimately, a father ravaged by his wartime experiences, a mother who is the strength of the family but also someone who remains silent despite everything and the author herself, a bright young woman who’s trajectory of life changes in an instant when she is raped. The first half of the book is mostly about growing up in her family and the myriad struggles she faced in trying to deal with her trauma. It’s a story of distress and helplessness, but also resilience and hope and I was in awe of the way she took control of her life and decided to make something out of her trauma. 

But it’s the second half of the book that really broke me. From the accounts of many school administrators and librarians who refused to let her speak or censored her book, to the numerous youngsters who decided to share their own traumatic experiences with her - it’s a harrowing read showing us the truth that is all around us but which we blind ourselves to, and a realistic picture of how things have hardly changed for the survivors after all these years. I was sobbing and raging while reading many of these poems. 

There is a lot to learn from this book. I think the author makes a great case for the perils of censorship, how suppressing content only leads to more ignorance and violence, and survivors are left without any safe spaces to explore their feelings. The author also calls for everyone, especially older victims of trauma to listen to young survivors who are brave enough to tell the truth instead of gaslighting them - insisting that just because they were silenced during their time doesn’t mean we get to do the same to the ones after us. And ultimately it’s a story of survival and the hope is that anyone who is reading it might find a piece of themselves in it, or maybe a tool to help them.

To conclude, I will just say that this book is a very important read and I implore everyone to pick it up. The content might be hard to read and you might want to shield kids from such harsh material, but it’s the truth of the world around us and all youngsters deserve to know it and maybe even be prepared. I think this is also a must read for all adults, especially parents so that we can all better understand and support any survivors we may know in our lives. Just make sure you are in the right frame of mind when you pick it up and experience the pain and rage and hope. And thank you so much to the author for putting her story out there for all of us to learn from and reflect upon. Let me end with these powerful words from the author herself.... 


  ”too many grown-ups tell kids to follow their dreams like that’s going to get them somewhere Auntie Laurie says follow your nightmares instead cuz when you figure out what’s eating you alive you can slay it”

Jen Estrella

The false innocence
you render for them
by censoring truth
protects only you
Well, damn. It just got more and more intense as I read chapter after chapter. Seriously, what a powerful book.

Neva Davies

A sad and lovely living testimony

Shout is a powerful statement to the resiliency of the human, speaking both to those who have been traumatized and those who know someone who has been traumatized. It's sad but lovely, poetry that reminds us that we aren't alone, even when we think that we are.

Shout

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