Speak

Rating:
Summary: Freshman Disaster
Review: Speak is a book that not many people have read. I have read it twice and I think that this book should be on everyone's book shelf. The things that a freshman girl coming into high school is amazing. There are a lot of people(mainly teens)that go through a lot of the same problems and struggles as Melinda goes through. This is an all around great book for young adults, and adults. I recommend this book to anyone who is coming into high school or a parent who has a child that will be in high school.

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes Silence Can be Used to Say a Thousand Things
Review: Shh... don't speak. It's not as hard as it may seem, especially not for Melinda Sordino. Everything is going wrong for her. All of her friends hate her, her clothes don't match, and even people that don't know her hate her from a distance. This is all because she called the cops at the end of a year party in August. She was taken advantage of, and she was too naive to know at the time. Now she is realizing that by calling the police her reputation has gone down the drain... but she doesn't have the voice to speak up and tell anyone about what really happened. Who would listen?

On the first day of school, she sees all of her friends in their new cliques, hanging all over new guys, and all in separate classes. So this is high school? The late passes, sleeping during class, and feeling like an outcast among the rest of her peers? This is what she looked forward to?

Her parents are beginning to worry about her. She has basically become a mute. She doesn't speak... she just nods her head. Her grades are dropping each marking period and the only class that she can really create emotions in is Art class. At the beginning og the year she is assigned a project to create a tree with emotion in it. But the trees are what she finds very difficult. They are actually much harder than they appear with their different sized leaves, roots, and trunks. Art becomes more than a hobby though; it becomes her way to put her feelings on paper. Everything begins shaping up when she meets a person named Heather who becomes her friend it's amazing though the way high school works. Heather drops her after the second marking period ends to hang with a better group called the Marthas.

What is she to do when her ex-best friend, Rachel B., starts dating Andy Evans (IT)? The moon was so much closer in August, but she can't keep silent about that night anymore. She was drunk and he seemed like a Greek God in all of his perfections. She thought that she was going to be able to start out high school with a boyfriend. God was she wrong. She has to warn her but will Rachel even listen?

This book is so realistic that my heart was literally jumping inside when I read that she was encountering Andy Evans... IT! I cringed at the thought of her scabbing lips and bleeding hands. She goes through so much in that first year of high school. Fresh meat truly is what she became, but like all things the reputation begins to fade from being incredibly terrible to not that lousy, and the hate isn't as strong. There are so many lessons to be learned from this book and so many things that need to be cast into our world. Maybe through this girl's eyes was the only way. This book sure got the message across to me with all of its vivid descriptions, catching plot, and subtle messages. I suggest that everybody should read Speak by Laurie Hales Anderson.

Rating:
Summary: Struggle to be Heard
Review: Melinda Sordino begins her freshman year in high school as an immediate outcast. Nearly every student knows that she called the police at a party the summer before, but no one ever asked her why. As she becomes more and more alienated, she sinks deeper into her own thoughts, rarely uttering a word to anyone. Through the voice in her head, she tells readers of the cruelties and ironies of high school, but at the same time, readers know that she does not wish for this absolute exclusion. However, there are those who wish to help her, an art teacher, an old friend who seems ready to forgive, her science partner, but she must first acknowledge what happened at that party and deal with her pain before she can grow and move on.
This wry examination of high school sociology through the eyes of a traumatized girl reveals the cruelties that occur to so many young people in school. Her extreme situation forced her into a greater alienation than most must deal with, but her final triumph shows that anyone can finally be heard. This book serves as an important addition in the discussion of abuse, but it also gives an example to more typical students that many high school students feel alienated, and it is up to individuals to develop the strength to make themselves heard.

Rating:
Summary: Speak
Review:  Melindas life has changed since last summer when she called the cops at the senior party. Now all her "so called friends" have abanded her. She's become the outcast and has icelated herself from the social scene. Melinda has locked herself in the darkness of her own mind adn will not open up for anyone. This book requars a mature aduience, but if invites a diverse group of people. As you read this book you will feel as though you are in Melinda's mind trying to find a way out of her miserie.

Rating:
Summary: OK book
Review: The book Speak takes place in a school setting. It basically talks about the different types of groups there are in school like the cheerleaders, jocks, ect... When something happens, the characters life is suddenly changed forever.
I enjoyed this book because you can relate it to your own life. Everywhere you go you are always going to be faced with decisions to make. The thing I didn't like about it was this girl chooses not to talk over an incident that took place. It was very frustrating knowing that she wanted to hold this in, instead of tell someone. If I were this girl I would have talked a long time ago. I recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries. The book has a touching side to it that will allow you to figure out what is going on and why the character is acting the way she is.

Rating:
Summary: a little voice
Review: Its about a girl name Melinda. Who got in to trouble at party and called the police. Now all her friends and peers shun her. She has no one to talk to her not even her parents in turn she doesn't speak to anyone. What I thought of the book was it was very intriguing to me. The way she coped with the situation on her own. It got me mad when Rachel didn't believe her and the other part that got me mad is how Heather and Andy treated her, especially mostly at Andy. I felt closes to her when it came to her parents and communication. It sucks when parents don't hear you out!

Rating:
Summary: What makes someone not speak?
Review: Mel is a young girl who is a freshman in high school. The school year starts off by no one speaking to her or wanting to be her friend. But why? Thats the mysterious part that happened one summer before high school. The book was interesting in some parts but you had to connect who "IT" is and what happened. Some parts of the book made me not want to put it down because of this "IT" person and what he has to do with Mel. The rest of it was quite boring in my opinion because it would tell how Mel was so depressed and wouldn't speak because she had so many problems and no one would talk to her. All because of something that happened over a short summer. I think she just neeeded a friend to help let her secert out and luckly that friend was Rachel. In my over all opinion, I think young females should read this book because in a way it connects to them. Read the book to find out what happens to mel and why she chooses not to speak.

Rating:
Summary: SO GREAT!!!
Review: i loved this book i read it about two years ago for freshman english and i loved it! there is so much truth about teenage drama and defeat! i thought that anderson did a wonderful job with this book! i had tears in my eyes when i read this book! when i was younger i went through a similar situation and this brought all of those painful memories back but it makes you feel stronger in the sense that people can get over things no matter how tough!

Rating:
Summary: Silent Rage and Dark Humor
Review: I'm gratified to read the primarily positive reviews below. I've been considering adding this book to a curriculum I'm creating for 8th/9th/10th grade. Laurie Halse Anderson certainly knows her way around the often dark high school hallways. This book, despite or, perhaps, because of its serious subject matter, stands in bold literary relief compared to the lighter YA fare that I've recently been assigned to consider for curriculum inclusion.

Rating:
Summary: AWFUL
Review: Ok maybe because i was forced by my english teacher to read this book, it shafted my view, but this is seriously the most awful book i have ever read. Melinda is a depressed freshman, and doesnt know how to deal with it. she thinks about suicide and constantally dis's other people at her school. Yes she did get raped, but other people have gotten raped and delt with it in other ways than that. Basically my whole class thought that this book was terriable. It was written well, but after the first half you knew what was going to happen. The only thing that i did not understand is how no one noticed anything. I mean she cut her self and constantally skipped shcool and didnot talk. This is where her parents, classmates, etc should have noticed something. Yes they did hater her, but her "best friend" should have notice something and so should have ehr teachers. This book sucked and was unrealistic.