Rating: 
Summary: Speak---Great Story for Teenage Girls
Review: Melinda Sordino is considered to most people in the beginning of the novel, SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson, as an outcast, freak, and a loner. She struggles to fit in high school. She tries to figure out why she's the way she is and she learns a few things about herself and others. She was hated for ruining a party by calling the cops, but they don't know the truth. She tries to show herself through her artwork and starts to confide to her art teacher Mr.Freeman. I enjoyed this novel for having to deal with the book's topic. I highly recommend this book, especially to teenage girls.
Rating: 
Summary: This is one of the greatest books I ever read
Review: This book was very good. It's about this girl who hides a secret that no one knows about. Not her parents or her ex- best friends. Whom won't talk to her. She is practically hated by the whole school. Melinda was a smart optimistic girl but when the awful thing that caused her to call the cops happened she was never the same. Melinda starts failing all her classes & she barely talks. It's a sad yet awesome story. This book is soooo good.
Rating:
Summary: Speak -- 5 Stars!
Review: I first laid eyes on this novel two years ago. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to get around to reading it until recently. I wish I had read it sooner, but better late than never.Melinda Sordino, a freshman at Merryweather High--home of the Trojans, Tigers, Wombats, or Hornets (whichever one you prefer), enters the highschool scene friendless, cliqueless. Melinda knows why they snub her. She made one of the biggest mistakes of her teenage life: calling the cops on the end-of-the-year party. If only they knew why, but they don't. And she can't seem to find her voice to tell them. All of them hate her--even her closest friend, Rachel. Now Rachel hangs out with all the sheik foreign exchange students, dressing up in absurd attires, and only tossing the occasional glare Melinda's way. Melinda begins skipping classes and school and her grades begin to drop. She becomes practically mute as she is reminded more and more of IT. That IT goes to her school. Knowing that IT notices her as much as she notices him. Experiencing crude episodes of IT's hubris and cruelty. Melinda happily tries to avoid IT until something happens that she cannot possibly ignore. IT--more commonly known as Andy Evans--and Rachel begin to date. Melinda tries to convince herself that it is not her business, that it is not her fault if something bad happens. She even tries to tell herself that Rachel deserves it. Try as she might, Melinda cannot sit back and watch her former best friend suffer the same fate as she. How could she ever forgive herself if Rachel were raped by him, too? Melinda must find her voice to tell Rachel what really happened at that end-of-the-year party before Rachel falls into Andy's trap.
Rating:
Summary: I love this sad but wonderful book!
Review: "My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman." (from the book) When high school freshman Melinda Sorino calls the police at an end-of-the-year party, she becomes a social outcast. Depressed and lonely, she hides in the corners of her mind, coming out of her shell only to work on her tree that represents the changes in her life. As the days pass, and the other kids become meaner and meaner, Melinda begins to wonder if life is really worth it. When will she ever speak about what happened at the fateful party? Funny in a sad way, Speak is a book that will leave you feeling thoughtful about high school and life in general. Its cruel but realistic characters remind us of our pains in everyday life. Melinda acts like the typical teenager depicted in stereotypes but really is her own person inside.
Rating:
Summary: Did we go to the same highschool
Review: Ok, obviously I'm an adult reader. This is a fabulous book on a topic that unfortunately is part of reality, and also unfortunately is one women/girls are ashamed to speak up about. Her approach to a sensitive topic and her empowering ending are enough to recommend this book alone. But the highschool she set it in was so real, I was having flashbacks. We had the same mascot, the same jokes about our mascot, the same enemy school mascots, latin club, the same cliques, the uncomfortable mix of kids who flaunt their family's wealth with kids who are from economically average families, the same lunch room politics, the same weather. But I'm from the midwest, not the east coast. Her lists of lies they tell you on the first day of school fit my school perfectly. She hit straight to the gut of what it is to be in highschool. I'd managed to forget about all that.
Rating:
Summary: Speaking The Truth
Review: This book was awsome! When I first read it, I read it over and over again. I got my friends to read it too. One of my friends told her cousin to read it, since she had the same experiences as Melinda. When she read it, she became inspired. I still read this book anytime I can.
Rating:
Summary: Subtle
Review: This book while being well written... leaves you in a dust to see what its really about. You get that she's having trouble in high school and that during the summer she got a bunch of her old friends in trouble. But you're not sure why exactly she seems to have such a terrible outlook on life. And then as you progress you start guessing to what really happened at that party. Its a very good book and i consider it a must. Its seductive and subtle and always interesting for the reader to finish it reading.
Rating:
Summary: Chicken Soup for the Cynical Teenage Soul...
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. In fact it got in the way of my homework... even up to this point at 10:30 PM in the middle of writing a DBQ (global essay) but instead writing this review. It's about a girl, Melinda, who has a very tramatic experience and as the book goes on you see her suffer for it, hate it, struggle away from it and finally grow from it. I personally loved it because it wasn't your typical teenage boo-hoo I'm so embarassed books-as fun as those are to read sometimes-it was a serious book with dark humor that appealed to me. "Dark, but inspirational" would be the perfect phrase to describe it. I'd recommend this to anyone. It's also an added bonus if you're from the dismal upstate NY.
Rating:
Summary: Please buy it!
Review: It's the first day of high school, and Melinda has been ostracized since breaking up an end-of-summer keg party for the incoming class and upperclassmen. Not a single one of her friends ask her why she called the police that night, and they don't really care to find out. They leave her behind, and then she realizes that she can't speak. When she tries to, her lips become dry and gross. This novel is hilarious at times--the high school is in the middle of changing their team name because of the impending controversy of former and recommended names--and heartbreaking at times--when the truth comes out about the party. Rarely am I more impressed with a first novel than I was with this, and so this is why I give it an excellent score. It truly is an excellent novel. Other favorite books: Brave New Girl, Sloppy Firsts, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating:
Summary: excellent, a must read
Review: Melinda started off her first year of high school at a bad start. After calling the cops at a summer party her life changed in many ways. Her best friends split up into differnt groups and abandon her. Students would call her names and not understanding what really happened that night. A good looking popular guy named Andy Evans, (a senior) raped her that night. Through her drawings in Mr.Freemens class and the support from him she begins to reach out to others. In the ending of the novel Andy Evans comes after her again. She shows him this time that she wont let him do the same thing he did before she speaks out and realizes that this is what she should of done from the start.
I felt that this book very good because it relates to many teenage girls in highschool and the different groups that they can grow into.
| 
