Speechless – Hannah Harrington

Speechless
Hannah Harrington
Harlequin Teen AUS
2012, 268p
Copy courtesy of the publisher

Chelsea Knot is a fifteen year old girl who loves a bit of juicy gossip. If she discovers something she rushes straight to her friends and can’t wait to spill the beans. She’s also not above using a secret to get something that she (or her best friend Kristen) wants either.

But then Chelsea stumbles on a really big secret and she blurts it out in a drunken moment, expecting people to be scandalised and maybe shocked and laugh a bit. But that isn’t what happens – someone is hurt so badly they are lucky to be alive. And even though Chelsea wasn’t the one that hurt them, she knows that it’s because of her and the fact that she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

So now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence. She is determined to keep her mouth shut and stop gossiping, stop spilling other people’s secrets. She is already a social outcast – ignored, ridiculed and harassed every day at school and to take it all in silence is harder than she imagines but she’s determined. She discovers that there’s a kind of satisfaction in not rising to the bait, of trying to present a smooth facade and trying to make them see that they’re not going to bother her, even if it’s not true underneath.

To her surprise, there are a few people that befriend her. People that despite what she did, are interested in her way of dealing with it and people who can maybe even forgive her. There’s even a boy, a boy who could be special if she could let go and allow herself to be free of the guilt and happy again.

I haven’t read Hannah Harrington’s debut novel Saving June but I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews for it around on blogs and I’d begun hearing a little buzz about her second novel, Speechless as well so when I was offered the chance to review it I requested it. I think that it tackles several important issues that are really relevant to teens today and I was curious to see the way in which it was done.

Chelsea has lived a shallow sort of life for the last few years. She’s the best friend of the most popular girl in their grade and everything she says and does usually revolves around what Kristen wants. Chelsea enjoys her position as Kristen’s best friend, the fact that it gets her respect, the fact that it gets her invited to all the best parties and included in all the cool things. When she’s at a party, she’s had a few too many jello shots and when she witnesses something that is a little scandalous she can’t help but spill the beans. It backfires in the worst way and when she sobers up the next morning and finds out what has happened, Chelsea is sickened and shaken that inadvertently, she caused someone she knows to be seriously injured. She bravely makes the choice to tell what she knows and for this is rendered a social outcast, spurned by Kristen and taunted by pretty much her entire grade.

I have to applaud Chelsea. Yes, she was a gossip, yes she didn’t care that she humiliated people. In a way she was guilty of a milder version of what she later faced, but when it came down to it, she did the right thing. She told the police what she knew, she knew herself that she’d crossed a line, a line she probably wouldn’t have if not for all of the jello shots she had consumed. Ultimately I think she was a good person who got bewitched by being one of the popular girls and I think that’s utterly easy to do. It’s nice to be liked, to be one of the crowd that no one dares to touch – to have that yanked away from you, to fall right to the bottom of the pile is a huge wake up call and I think she way in which she dealt with the fall out was admirable. It’s not easy to resist the urge to fight back, to defend yourself, especially with some of the things she was experiencing. High school is bad enough when you’re not a target, the fact that she got up and went to school every day and took her punishment (for something she shouldn’t have actually been punished for, she was bullied for identifying two people who did something, not for spilling the actual secret) was something that I had to respect. It’s a rare person who doesn’t know what it’s like to be a target in high school, however brief so in that instance I think that it’s very easy for readers of any age to connect with Chelsea.

Speechless is an excellent contemporary YA novel dealing with tough issues in an extremely realistic way that I believe readers will be able to identify with. Harrington nails the voices, you believe in these teenagers. I like that her parents are very much a presence in this novel, they are not perfect or lax or overly strict. They are loving but flawed people who want the best for her but at times are not entirely sure how to reach her, her mother in particular. I liked the fact that her father supported her vow of silence just as much as I liked the fact that her mother was frustrated by it. It smacked of real family relationships to me, ups and downs.

I read this in a single sitting – even though it’s deep and emotional, it’s an easy read, the pages just turn themselves. There’s an easy style here, Chelsea is sympathetic even with all her flaws and the supporting characters, be they against Chelsea or in favour of her are all diverse and well written. Saving June is now the newest addition to my ‘must read’ pile.

9/10

Book #155 of 2012

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