Speak

Summary:  Melinda Sordino (which in Italian means mute) ruined a party by calling the cops the summer before freshman year. Now she is the outcast of all outcasts.  She should have called. She was raped by a senior, Andy Evans, but no one knows. Now her old friends won’t talk to her. Kids at school she doesn’t even know hate her. She is not able to tell anyone about it.  She gets depressed and loses her ability to speak with ease.  She can express only her inner pain and struggle through skipping class and physical acts, such as biting and cutting herself.  The only place she feels safe is alone, inside her own head, but even that’s not safe. She needs to speak the truth. Her only friend Heather, is a new girl and is the total opposite of Melinda. Heather does not accept her high school clique as an outcast and does her best to be popular. Heather is self-centered and unable to see that she is using Melinda to avoid facing the fact that they both can be better people and better friends. Melinda continues struggles through her freshman school year contemplating thoughts of suicide. She is continually harassed by the boy who violated her. Her art teacher helps her to find herself again. She starts to put her life back together, and finds an inner strength she never knew she had…to speak.

Anderson, L. (1999). Speak. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

Commentary:  This book is brutally honest and open about a particularly difficult situation. It is real and something that teenagers will be able to see themselves in from all the cliques to the one teacher who cares about you.  Melinda grew so much from the beginning of this book to the end, truly finding her voice.  

Connections:  I would consider this book a Realistic Fiction novel that addresses a tough topic, teenage rape and the issues that a person has in dealing with the emotional scars that leaves.    

Laurie Halse Anderson's webpage.

Video interview with the author about Speak.

Book Trailer

The author has a section on her webpage dedicated to Teachers who may be teaching  lesson with her books.  It's a great resource.  Here's a link to the Speak Teacher page.

This is a link to the Lifetime movie created based on the novel Speak.