Of thirty-three speech tags I count in three chapters, eight are 'commented', six 'asked', five 'said', two 'stated', and one each of 'clarified', 'elaborated', 'explained', 'informed', 'moaned','murmured', 'repeated', 'screamed', 'spat', 'started', 'told', and 'whispered'. I know I'm not the only person who notices this sort of thing. If you feel you're achieving the effect you're aiming at, that's your decision, but for my taste that's way too much variation: 'said' is the most neutral speech tag and so I feel it should be the most frequently used one. So many uses of 'commented' just make me feel odd.