Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton

Megan has a secret, she'll never tell anyone, she's also a mute.

At school she's bullied by Sadie, Jane and Lindsay a group of bullies who used to be her best friends once years ago.

Megan's secret is to do with Hana whom she writes letters to apologising, she was her best friend and she witnessed her death.

When new girl Jasmine ditches Sadie and her friends she hangs round with Megan and doesn't make fun of her for being mute she is patient and calm.

Luke knows Megan's secret but as he asks out Megan only to be shot down after one date Megan starts to worry he could break their promise...

Open with each other, Jasmine confides in Megan that her family has been targeted by someone with something against them as horrible things start to happen to them...

Megan gets a huge crush on Jasmine and has to bury her feelings until they go camping...

A breathtakingly beautiful yet heartbreaking novel about self discovery, loss and grief, bullying as well as love and sexuality.

The subject of mutism isn't greatly used in young adult fiction so I loved that it was included here, the story is a gripping one as the mystery surrounding Hana starts from the word go and throughout it's never clear what happened just where and not why but we are free to speculate of course!

Touching and not easily forgotten.

Girl In Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow

Known for being the silent girl in treatment, as she suffers with selective mutism. Charlie Davis is a self harmer who has been through a lot.

We see snippets of her life whilst she tries to heal from her self harm addiction whilst in hospital. Upon being released, we see her mum give up on looking after her and so she goes to move to where here best friend Mikey lives.

She struggles a lot throughout the book and as we learn deeper into the background with her parents and her running away from home and living on the streets it becomes clear how much it has messed up her views as she disassociates a lot during tough times and even at one point tries to self harm again when things don't go as she planned them to.

Her job she gets at True Grit a sort of coffee house and restaurant, doesn't pay to great but she does get closer to older man and rocker style guy Riley whom is a heavy drunk and drug addict.

The book focuses on how she copes with life despite all the bad, the storylines of suicide, addiction and death only make the emotional journey in this more realistic and necessary to modern day as many turn to self harm to cope with problems instead of choosing to speak out about them instead.

A Quiet Kind Of Thunder by Sara Barnard

Stefanie, or Steffi is a girl whom suffers with anxiety, introversion and selective mutism in her first year of sixth form. We know she likes to read and keep to herself from the start and is seen as invisible by other pupils until she is paired up with new student Rhys, who is deaf but Steffi and Rhys can communicate by sign language and feel comfortable in each other's company unlike the the other student's who haven't been able to really connect with Steffi at all apart from Tem.

Steffi's best friend September or Tem, who is a passionate runner and has grown up like a sister to Steffi as their lives have been interwoven by Steffi's mum helping Tem's family live safely from a refugee crisis center.

Over the course of the novel, we see the challenges sufferers of both conditions face day to day. We also see parental concern over Steffi wanting to go to university to study whilst her mum worries she won't talk to anyone and end up in a more anxious state. There is also the fact that her step brother died and he went off to university meaning he didn't see much of them at times and her dad and Lucy, his new wife missed out on some extra time with him.

The novel was super cute but also very realistic to teenage dating whether it be between Tem and Karam being one sensible, set on a path of dedicated education and one up for a party whilst pondering their future career still. Or, the situation between Steffi and Rhys, especially when want to prove to their families they can go away together on holiday safely which causes lots of concern's and conflict.

Overall, I think Steffi and Rhys are great! They gel throughout everything they go through even the few disagreements can't break these two but they do need to learn they're not burdens to each other as they each believe! We see how they both actually save each other towards the final part of the book and it was done heart stoppingly well, prepare yourselves!