Say Something by Carl Lakeland follows a Melbourne man who slowly retreats into silence after losing the two most important people in his life—one to a bus crash and one to suicide. Through interventions from a plumber, a community nurse, and a blank page, the novel documents his return to living. Readers come to understand in the early chapters how the protagonist ended up in this situation. His world is defined by recurring number sequences and objects rather than exposition. Silence keeps everyone outside, but eventually he realizes it keeps him inside, too. His attempt at a Saturday night outing ends abruptly when a song causes a panic attack. An anonymous call prompts a welfare check. Help arrives in the form of Jenny, a community nurse, and Claire, a psychologist. Collaboratively, they develop a plan to assist Carl in regaining his voice by encouraging him to write. Will Carl recover or stay locked in a world without spoken words?

From author Carl Lakeland comes another extraordinary novel, Say Something. Billed as a fictional autobiography, the book features a protagonist who shares the author's name. The novel’s most important insight arrives in chapter 18, when a counseling session reveals why he consciously chooses silence. Recovering his voice would entail a responsibility he is not yet ready to face. Progress in the novel is never announced. Readers find it in subtle ways, such as a laugh or a croak, only to be followed by silence again. If you have read other novels by Lakeland, you already know that objects are heavily used as emotional symbols. This work is no exception, and following them closely will reveal the protagonist's emotional state at any point in the story. The list of characters is small and tight-knit, creating a sense of intimacy. Each one has a foot in Carl’s world, and how that inclusion expands is a fascinating part of the plot’s progression. I was filled with intrigue and emotion. I highly recommend it!

Grief is not linear. There is no fixed timeline or prescribed process for working your way through it. Sometimes a person can love someone so much that when that person or people are gone, they wonder how the world could still keep turning. In grief, a man turns silent. He keeps to himself, sticks to his routines, and does not talk if he can help it. He tries to laugh once, but the sound startles him. Laughter in his silent existence feels out of place. His home is both a comfort and a prison. Memories surround him, stuck in a cycle he has no desire to break. But someone notices his silent struggles, and one day, a reluctant welfare check becomes the start of something new, something different, and he isn’t sure he is ready for it. Read Say Something by Carl Lakeland to find out more.

Say Something by Carl Lakeland is beautifully written, and words are not enough to describe how poignant the narrative was. I cried during the welfare check scene. When the female officer placed a hand on the unnamed man’s shoulder, I cried along with him. Lakeland’s writing is extraordinary, thought-provoking, and immersive. It felt like the words reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. There is so much to love about this book that I do not know where to even start. We’ve all felt grief at some point in our lives, and the unnamed man’s first-person point-of-view narrative perfectly depicted loss and healing with such care and raw emotion that I felt my heart break and mend itself in the same breath. Say Something is a masterpiece in its own right, and reading it was an experience like no other. Outstanding job!

Silence can often speak the loudest. After the deaths of his wife and daughter, the narrator of Say Something by Carl Lakeland inexplicably loses his ability to speak. Still, he goes through the motions of living day-to-day without it, communicating as best he can by simple pantomime or by using his cellphone to type messages whenever more complexity is required. When a concerned member of his community reports him to social services, he at first resents the intervention, but soon finds the psychologist and the visiting nurse he is assigned helpful and caring, though neither can make significant improvements to his inability to speak. It is only when the narrator turns to writing fiction that he finds his voice again, though speech continues to elude him. When will he finally say something?

I found Say Something a compelling read. Though limited by its first-person perspective and its lack of dialogue, it nevertheless grabs and keeps the reader’s attention throughout. I attribute this to author Carl Lakeland’s ability to create such a sympathetic protagonist. The unnamed narrator has lost much more than his voice, but has preserved his wit, his stubbornness, and his ability to adapt, making him well worth rooting for. I also appreciated how Lakeland shows the creative process as the narrator develops his writing skills. As an author myself, I recognized the frustrations with writing and rewriting a story until it’s worth reading. However, you don’t need to be an author to enjoy Say Something; you simply need to appreciate fine storytelling that says a lot about loss, love, and the ability to change.

How do you go on when you've lost the ones who meant everything to you? In Say Something by Carl Lakeland, a man living in Melbourne, Australia, has pretty much shut himself off from everyone. Losing his wife, Anna, has been incredibly difficult, and memories of their daughter, Rebecca, bring back even more heartache. He's gotten used to living alone, with the television often providing the only noise in the house. What I found unusual was that he could speak perfectly well but had chosen not to. If he needed to communicate, he'd write a note, use his phone, or simply point to what he wanted. I couldn't help thinking about how complicated that would make an ordinary trip to the store. There are also glimpses of happier moments with his family, which help explain why he's having such a hard time moving on. A few people do make an effort to get to know him, but he's not exactly eager to welcome anyone into his life. Will he ever be willing to let someone get close to him again?

Say Something by Carl Lakeland surprised me in the best way possible. The title carries quite a meaning once you understand it. At times, this story was gut-wrenchingly sad. The main character experiences so much loss, and yet he goes on. There were so many little details that made me feel like I was right there with him. I could picture Anna's empty chair and imagine how hard it must have been to hear the neighbors enjoying their evenings while he sat alone. The pace worked well, too. It wasn't one of those books where everything happens at once, but I never felt like it dragged. I also thought there were several moments when he was getting some closure, even though I don't think he always saw it that way. Helen Keller said, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it." That seems fitting for a man who has been through a great deal. Anyone who enjoys a story that pulls at the heartstrings and makes you think about how differently people handle grief will want to pick this one up.