Rating: 
Summary: I could not put it down.
Review: After reading about this book here, I went and bought it just a few hours ago. Being a rape survivor myself, I was interested in seeing how Anderson portrayed it in her novel. Once I started reading the novel, I could not put it down. I read the book in a matter of two hours, not stopping for any reason. It's a wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: An awesome Book
Review: Hey, I had to read this book for summer reading this year and im 14. I thought it was going to be boring because it was a summer reading but it ended up being the best book i have read in a long time. In school I had read about element that characters should go through to make a story good. Well the main character did. All through the book you wanted to know what had happened at the party. I read the book in 3 days it kept me reading because I wanted to know what happened. I like how it really showed how populartiy is in school and the pressures of school and how sometimes you just want to give up, but she didn't. This book was inspiring. I thought the end was a surprise but it worked really well. When I finished the book I was upset because I was finished reading it and I wanted to read more. This is the best book. I encourage everyone to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great novel for any teenager!
Review: This book was one that you never wanted to put down. An interesting incident was happening on every page. It went through Melinda's school year dealing with all her emotional feelings. It was a great book that dealt with a teenager trying to find a true friend to share her inner pain with.
Rating:
Summary: not enough words to describe!
Review: I've read this book a million times. I read it a while ago, but i forgot to write a review. It was a very good book. In many ways this book portrays messages not only about opening up, but about school life, trust, friendship, and family. If you don't like this book, i think you might be a little out of it.
Rating:
Summary: Great depiction of an adolescent in turmoil
Review: I am glad to see that so many who have reviewed this book are the readers for whom this book was intended. The subject matter is tough, and perhaps some of the readers have had to deal with similar issues themselves. They should find hope in Melinda's story. Others may be lucky enough to be in supportive homes, or to be part of the "in" crowd. They may need this book even more, because Melinda's experience is unfortunately too true. Those who have not been in her place can begin to understand life from a different perspective, begin to learn that people come from all kinds of experiences, good and bad, and that those experiences sometimes cloud the real person hiding inside. In Melinda's case, that real person is perceptive, witty and worth getting to know. The author's voice was refreshing, taking on much of the language of high school hallways. Melinda's acerbic wit helps to make the reading of this difficult and painful story enjoyable nonetheless. The depictions and characterizations of various teachers will be recognized by any who have frequented high school. I just don't want MY students to tell me which one I was! Most intriguing to me was the author's use of a tree as a metaphor for Melinda's journey of self-discovery and path toward wholeness. It was so subtle in the beginning, and drawn out so beautifully by the end as a symbol of healing and rebirth. Like the tree, the roots of her problem were deep and the wound scarring, but also like the tree, with care she will go on. Trees have served as such symbols in many mythologies, and the storyteller in me appreciated how it was woven throughout the story, barely aware that it was symbolic, until near the end.
Rating:
Summary: Will Melinda's choice shatter everything...?
Review: Melinda arrives in high school with no friends. She had great friends last year, like Rachel -- but that was until the fateful end of the summer when she called the police at a party to arrest a boy in her school, Andy. Though no one knows the truth of why she made the phone call, she is hated and looked down to by every student in her school. Melinda can't speak up for herself -- her heart wants to, but her thoughts stir her not to speak. Even though her year is going rough and her ex-friends are horrible to her, she endures it even as they continue to break her heart. Soon it begins to shatter all that she does in school -- her relationships, her grades, her attitude, her abilities. Will Melinda simply break apart at the year's end... or can she, at last, pull out the courage to speak for defense? The decision will be one that may shatter it all, a choice too much for her to fathom. Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, was a powerful, emotional, and tense novel, breaking out with feelings and expressing so much. It was humurous sometimes, in areas that I couldn't stop laughing. Readers will laugh and cry along with Melinda, a character the author has created to be drawn to your heart and admire for what she feels and expresses. Though I liked Fever 1793, the author's other novel, a historical adventure, better than this, I was deeply absorbed in this utterly powerful novel, Speak. I highly recommend it, especially to those who have read Fever 1793.
Rating:
Summary: An amazingly true portrayl of a teenage girl
Review: This book is truly amazing, one I have read over and over again. It's thought provoking, it's dark, it's funny, and most of all it's true. Melinda is facing the start of highschool with no friends, the result of her breaking up a party over the summer by calling the cops. She does not speak to anyone, instead she observes-the cliques at school, her parents, her ex-friends, and IT. IT is the main reason Melinda is not speaking. Melinda deals with pressures from her one friend, Heather, with being shunned by her old friends and by the 'populars' and with her parent's messy marriage. This book was un-putdownable, and, in all honesty, one of the best I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Read This Book
Review: I thought this book was amazing. Some parts hitt a little too close to home for me. But parts like the 10 Lies They Will Tell You In High School and her pep rally experiances made the book totally worth reading. I'm sorry to say I am a pathetic reader, but I just couldn't put this book down. I recomend it to anyone who finds humor in the halls of high school. It's not for anyone who has never experienced being left out or who can honestly say their in the "in crowd."
Rating:
Summary: The best book ever!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: This book is touching and witty. It is compleatly realistic in regaurds to what that other reader wrote. Melinda looked at the world and twisted it and took the truth out of everything she saw. And yes a teacher would let a student not talk. I loved this book. Anyone can easily identify with it and i highly recomend it
Rating:
Summary: speak..
Review: was brilliant. very inspiring. being an anti-social outcast at school, i could relate with many of melinda's feelings. during the times when i didn't relate, i wanted to hold her and take away the pain.
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