Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton

About a year ago, Megan witnessed a harrowing incident which made her unable to talk for the following 12 months. She blames herself for what happened, and there are demons inside her which bully her and tease her and encourage her to blame herself. Her mother struggles to look after her - she is a single mother with no family to help out, trying to hold down a job in the local cafe. Megan doesn't have many friends - the spiteful bully Sadie and her gang constantly talk nastily to her, knowing she can't reply. Her only friend is Luke - that is, until the bright and bubbly Jasmine starts at the same school. They instantly become inseparable friends, but when Jasmine starts to fall for Owen, Sadie's ex, Megan realises that it's not just friendship she wants with Jasmine. Then Jasmine starts to receive anonymous threatening notes and messages. Is Jasmine's life in danger, and can Megan be brave enough to cope with another awful incident in her life?

This book is surprisingly very readable. You want to find out what happened in Megan's life that made her stop talking. There are many issues that are covered in the book, mainly post-traumatic stress, and dealing with confusing emotions of who you love. These issues are dealt with gently and sensitively. The only thing I was slightly bored with was the set up of Megan living on a rundown estate, with yob boys hanging around, single mum, and the bully girls at school who seem to get away with all the nastiness they throw at Megan. But this is only probably because I've read a few books recently with the same formats - so much so that a couple of those books I got fed up with and stopped reading after a few chapters. But Abbie's easy style of writing and her way of enticing you into wanting to know what happens next, meant I quite enjoyed reading this - it only took me about 2 days to read.