The Impossible Knife of Memory

[Stephenie]

I heard Laurie Halse Anderson speak at the National English Teachers Convention in Boston last November, and she shared that much of what she writes comes from personal experience. Melinda in Speak is partly her and Hailey and her father in this book are based on her experience growing up with a father who suffered PTSD after Vietnam. The setting is contemporary and Hailey's father has returned from Iraq, suffering from his war experiences. While I appreciated the story and found the experience authentic, this is not my favorite Laurie Halse Anderson novel. The dialogue felt forced, and I didn't believe in her characters the way I did in both Speak and Twisted. There were a lot of similarities though between Billy Lynn in the book I posted about earlier and the father in this book, so if you are interested in PTSD, I do recommend this one.