My library’s collection of audiobooks for teens and tweens was practically nonexistent before I started working there, and I’ve been building it up slowly over many months. One title I elected to purchase was Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, a novel which really needs no introduction. I somehow missed out on reading it when I was a teen and it was first published in 1999, and it’s been in the spotlight once again recently, so I figured I should give it a whirl, even though I tend to stay away from contemporary YA.
In short: Melinda Sordino went to a party the summer between 8th and 9th grade. Things got out of hand and she called the police, who arrived and broke up the party. As a result, Melinda starts high school as a social pariah. Her outcast status and unmentioned events that occurred at the party drive Melinda to silence. Her former friends have ditched her, her grades drop, and she finds herself unable to talk to anyone about what’s happened – or, in most cases, talk at all.
While I think the book itself is a good one, the audio production is flawed. The narrator speaks in a flat, monotone voice and as a result, it’s difficult to really feel for Melinda, even though what she’s experienced is incredibly traumatic. Inflection is rare and there’s almost no vocal change between the characters. I can understand why this choice may have been made: Melinda seems almost shell-shocked by what’s happened to her, and her reaction is to shut down rather than lash out. It’s still not an effective narrative device for an audiobook.
Another factor that may have contributed to my dislike of the experience is my prior knowledge: I knew the midpoint twist ahead of time and thus was always anticipating when the ball would drop. There was no mystery or “aha” moment for me.
I did appreciate how the novel was structured, with a lot of cheeky asides and clever turns of phrase by Melinda (the cheerleaders get a group discount on abortions; her report card indicates an F in socializing and a D- in lunch). Much of the dialogue is structured differently as well (“Mom: blahblah. Me: silence”), an effective device for a novel about a girl who refuses to speak.
I think my mistake was listening to this novel on audio instead of reading it in print. I never really got the impression that Melinda was silent, since I was, in fact, hearing her voice the entire time. Thus the impact of the whole book was lessened significantly.
I listened to Speak right on the heels of Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall, an excellent audio production of a different kind of story, but one whose intention was also to bring the reader into the head of the protagonist. It was much more successful in this regard: I felt deeply for Sam, was completely invested in her situation, and believed wholeheartedly in her transformation. In Speak, however, I felt more removed from Melinda than I think Halse Anderson intended. I blame the audio production for this, since the whole point of Speak is that we don’t hear Melinda’s voice until the very end.
Speak is such an important book in the YA canon, and for good reason – it’s written well, is about an important topic, and still makes headlines more than ten years after its publication. If you haven’t yet read it, it really should be added to your to-read list – but keep it off your to-listen-to one.
I listened to this one too and now I feel better about not having the crazy love for it that most people seem to.
It definitely sounds like you had some legitimate audio complaints. Some books just plain work better in print.
It's been so long since I read this. In fact, I remember reading this when it came out — I was 16. Right at the precipice of teen lit blossoming. I'm sad to hear the audio wasn't that great, but man, you make me want to reread this one in light of everything else in YA. I feel like it's almost That Author who defines YA lit in the way that Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman define American Literature, if that makes sense.