Rating: 
Summary: The Best Book!
Review: There are a lot of social groups at Meriwether Highschool like the jocks, cheerleaders and Marthas and Melinda Sordino doesnt belong to any of those groups at Meriwether highschool. It is because she called the police at an end of summer party hosted by her ex-best friend Rachel Bruins. Melinda called the police because she was raped by a drunk senior named Andy Evans.
One day a new girl named Heather moves and goes to Meriwether highschool. Heather becomes Melindas only friend. Then Heather joins the Marthas group(A group that does good deeds for the community) because she is tired of Melinda always having a bad attitude. That meant Melinda was back to having no friends.
Finally one day at school, Melinda Sordino stands up to senior Andy Evans because he denied raping Melinda while being drunk at Rachels party. Then she becomes the most popular girl at Meriwether Highschool.
I loved reading this book because it is a page turner and their was a lot of descriptive detail.
Rating: 
Summary: Great summer book
Review: Speak was a good book. You could feel the character's feelings. The detail and voice which this book possesed is great. The book is at times slower than what I like. Still, the plot was excellent. Most of the characters were great. The person I hated the most was Andy Evans. He brought a bad rep to guys. The fact that someone can go from a total invisible outcast with no friends into someone who gains a friend back is a good lesson for people to learn that it doesn't matter who you are you will still have a friend.
Rating:
Summary: It is a bigger issue than you think
Review: It's the beginning of a new school year. Melinda is going into High School. Here you don't want to be caught wearing the wrong clothes or be in the wrong group. Too bad her school year started all wrong even before her school year began. She is not liked by most because she called the cops on the party. A lot of powerful people are arrested. She called not because of the party but because of something else. Too afraid of speaking out she keeps silent. When her friends life is in danger she must speak out no matter what will happen...This book is about the will-power of one and getting over the fact that something has happened to you. It is a very compling book. I will remember this book for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST!!!!
Review: I LOVE this book!!! You can really relate to Melinda and how difficult it is to cope with her terrifying problems. I read this book 4 times, and each time I loved it even more!!! READ IT!!!
Rating:
Summary: Don't pass this book by!
Review: "Speak" was an awesome book. I am 14 and am going to start high school soon. I read this book in 2 hours. I just could not put it down. The story starts out with a sort of confusing beginning. Melinda says she is unliked for calling the police at a party, but you keep wondering WHY she called the police, and why everybody hates her, and who IT is. You don't find out until the end of the story, but it's worth the wait. I reccommend this book to ALL teenagers. It's truly captivating.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful and darkly funny
Review: Melinda is a freshman in high school, and she is an Outcast. Because of something that happened over the summer, none of her former friends are speaking to her, and people who don't even know her recognize her name with hatred. She narrates the book in first-person, delivered in little sections that can't even be termed chapters--that's part of what made this book go so fast.
As we continue reading (the book is divided into four major sections, termed "Marking Periods", which have a report card at the end of each) we learn more about what happened over the summer. She called the police while she was at a party, and a lot of kids were arrested. The reason she called the police isn't given until the end of third marking period, when Melinda realizes that one of her (former) friends is in danger unless she has the courage to speak out.
As the school year progresses, the book's tone gets darker and more frightening. Paralyzed by fear, Melinda slowly loses her ability to speak, and chews her lips to bloody pulps. Her few remaining human connections--her science lab partner, her art teacher--still accept her for who she is, but her busy parents are oblivious to the torment their daughter is experiencing. Even when she is disciplined for poor grades and cutting class, they don't know how to make her talk to them, and don't take the time to try to listen. The only way she manages to express herself is through her art project--to draw, paint, sculpt, a tree. As her emotions and character changes, so do her trees.
Even though the subject matter of the book is very dark and frightening, I found the book overall to be full of humour. Melinda mocks the high school cliques, her parents, and herself, in the monologue running inside her head. And the end of the book manages to be uplifting, so that even as your tears are still on your cheeks, you smile and know Melinda will be okay.
I am not a fan of the Oprah Book Club or After School Specials--I just don't enjoy stories about tormented women or the problems plaguing women and girls in today's society. I am not trying to criticize those stories, because I know they serve a very important purpose; I'm just saying that they're not usually my cup of tea. But _Speak_ took me by surprise. I was moved by this book, and I think it's one all women (and really all men, too) should read.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL!
Review: Ok im not the book reading type but once i picked up this book i couldnt stop! It usually takes me forever to read books but this one was just so good! It was sad, funny, and weird. This was a GREAT book and if i were you i would buy it. I hope the author makes MANY more books like this one because i will read them all!
Rating:
Summary: Quality
Review: This book was really good. It told of one girl's struggle with a secret and with the downfalls of high school. It acurately portrayed the cliques of high school, and how mean some people actually are.
I also enjoyed how it took her awhile to tell someone. It's not like TV where in 25 minutes she tells someone and the guy is bye bye. It takes time to tell secrets like that, and I like how the author kept true to real situations like this one.
Rating:
Summary: Silence
Review: "I am Outcast," Melinda Sordino tells us on her first day of high school. Everyone else has found their niche, some clique to fit into - Goths, Thespians, Jocks. Melinda fits in nowhere. She doesn't speak. Nobody really wants to hear what you think, she informs the reader. While this is a commentary on the many flaws of high school, with lists like The First Ten Lies They Tell You In High School and ironic vignettes detailing the often idiotic nature of the staff and traditions (the school council's continual changing of the football team's name is a recurring issue), it's also the story of one girl's struggle to deal with a trauma, and to overcome her past. Funny and touching, and possibly one of the best young adult novels out there.
Rating:
Summary: SPEAKing the truth.....
Review: Melinda is a girl who is starting high school. She didn't really take the change from junior high to the big school that well since she had no friends. THe books goes through her journey in school. Her struggles, her good times, and the other aspects of a teenage girls life. Learning about another person's view of life was very interesting to me, since I just started high school at the beginning of the year. She has a slightly different view then me, but it was still a learning experience. The way her art teacher had her do only one subject really showed her true character because it showed that she would get frustrated easily and that she would never be satisfied with her tree that she had to evolve or herself. Also, having to live with herself after calling the cops at a party that was meant to be fun and having many people realize who she was, made starting school at a new place even harder. Her hate for IT really gave a twist to her feelings about Rachel, her ex-best friend. She only wanted things to be the same as before, but IT made things the awful way there were now. It was IT's fault for the end of their friendship, and the terrible year she had. Heather also resembles Melinda's tree to me because she was never happy with just being ordinary, she didn't like her body, she didn't like the school, and she didn't like being known as Melinda's one and only friend. Everything that happened to Melinda seems to have some importance in the end. She realizes she shouod just face tghe one main fact of her life that she tried to forget. Also, she decided to be happy with who she was and didn't care about what others thought.
I really like how the author didn't have chapter one, two, three, etc., but how she made her own unique way of showing what the next passage would be about by titling it a different title for each subject the book covered. The book being in first person narrative made it easier to understand what Melinda was thinking and feeling, instead of having someone else tell her tale. It made everything more creative and true to her life story.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the bok and the life that Melinda lived. I feel as if I know her form someone at my school or as if I was her. It helped me realize that my life isn't perfect and I should jsut own up to my faults. I really would recommend this book to teenage girls going through the transition to high school.
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