Rating: 
Summary: 100% AWESOME!!!
Review: I loved it! I never thought that this book was going to be any good. But, it was AWESOME! I never read a book in less than a week. Every second I had in class and home, I would take advantage and read. I would go to sleep at 2 in the morning knowing I had to wake up at 6am, I would stay reading. It was mysterious, as Melinda (the Main Character) will say that what occured to her was only refrased as "it". I was more wanting, and interested to finish and get to the end of the book. It was AWESOME!!!! I would recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Speak is an excellent teen novel!
Review: Speak is an excellent novel about a girl dealing with a tragic teen crisis. It is a compelling story of how she manages to overcome her fear and anxiety related to the event, and manages to find herself in a high-school world of rejection.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic ... should be required reading
Review: Few people love adolescence. Overprotective parents, hormones, calculus, varsity sports, and fitting in can make a kid's life incredibly difficult. Well, what if your parents weren't overprotective at all and didn't even bother talking to you except to scold or insult? What if you had hormones but were too terrified of the opposite sex to make a move? What if you couldn't fit in because you're a social pariah? Meet Melinda Sordino, the outcast poster child. A high school freshman, she's Merryweather High's on-the-fringe, outcasted even by the outcasts. The reason? She called the cops on an upperclassmen party over the summer, and nobody likes a narc. But there's a reason to Melinda's party bust, including why she's going mute: a brutal rape by hearthrob senior Andy Evans (whom Melinda, in her interior dialogue, nicknames IT and BEAST). And the only way for Melinda to keep from snapping is to withdraw into herself and stop speaking."Speak" paints a sharp, lonely, and hilarious contrast between Melinda's world and that of the Merryweather High populars: the Marthas (Martha Stewart clones who love coordinating outfits, school events, and underclassmen's untimely demise), the jocks, the cheerleaders ("We are the hornets! Horny, horny hornets!"), and even Melinda's pseudo-friend, Heather from Ohio (who, through Melinda's see-through-the-crap gaze, watches as she goes from gawky new kid to popular-in-training). The novel is sprinkled with hilarious and ironic episodes, such as how the school can't decide on a mascot (apparently, the "Merryweather Trojans" doesn't send a good abstinence message, "Merryweather Chiefs" is disrespectful of Native Americans, and "Merryweather Hornets" inspire the cheerleaders to compose lewd hormone-charged cheers [see above]). There's Merlinda's parent's funny bickering sessions, a Harvard-destined biology class partner, a cracked art teacher, and enough blonde foreign exchange students to make Melinda wonder if all American kids are naturally dumpy-looking. This book is a prize enough, but Melinda's viewpoint only makes it better. She is shy and vulnerable, but at the same time very wise and poignant. As I sat reading it, I got to see the other side of the high school fence: that of the lonely kid who everyone sees as a nutcase when, in face, they're quite normal. Everyone turns up their nose at Melinda because of her silence and her non-popularity, but no one suspects that she's just another kid who happens to be suffering deep inside. This book should be mandatory reading for high school students (and trust me, I hate reading lists!). Seeing the world through someone else's gaze is a total eye-opener.
Rating: 
Summary: Literary Review
Review: The novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson uses a variety of literary devices. By using a first person point of view the reader is able to understand the thoughts and emotions of Melinda Sordino. Anderson characterizes the people in the story by using the first person point of view. It is through both this indirect and direct form of characterization that the reader is able to understand what kind of person Melinda is. The reader becomes familiar with Melinda's round character traits and emotionally unstable thoughts. The conflicts in the story are developed through Melinda's outlook on life. The round character brings the story to life by her ever changing mood swings and downcast, cynical outlook on life. The tone the author takes about the young girl's life is intriguing in such a way that the reader feels obligated to finish the story in hopes of understanding the tormented girl, or likewise, people resembling Melinda Sordino. This sardonic comedy demonstrates the cruelty and loneliness that can be frequent in the eyes and mind of a high school student. The book portrays a deep sense of isolation and sorrow, and it shows the extreme opposite, groups of people and never ending cheerfulness. All in all, it is the strong sense of desolation and misery that attracts the readers to this book. One part of the reader feels an unexplainable amount of empathy for the girl and the other part has a yearning to understand young Melinda and to figure out why she does the things she chooses to do. The mixed emotions that the book brings to the reader are what make it appealing.
Rating:
Summary: How to Speak
Review: Speak is one of the best contemporery books that i have ever read. Laurie Halse Anderson creatively tells a painful story in a small amount of space. The lead character deals with problem that the rest of us can only dream of. The only thing that I might have changed was have it be longer, but it wouldn't have been the same.
Rating:
Summary: The Real Thing
Review: Speak was a great book!!! It touched me in so many ways. The way in which it got to me the most is that she was going through what I went through when I was thirteen. It is a horrible thing. I am now seventeen and only just now have began to recover. I had friends, but none of them knew anything. I would recommend this book to anyone! It is the best book I have ever read! I cried the entire time I was reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: A powerful read
Review: She wasn't a plane Jane, cheerleader or a suffering artist. Melinda Sordino was a nothing. It all goes back to a large summer house party in which she was raped, she called the cops who shut down the party. In this two hundred and three page book written by Laurie Anderson you follow the life of a high school outcast.
This book follows Melinda many places such as school, home, and even a little old closet she tidied up in school. With only one friend, it is hard to navigate the hallways without being always being picked on and/or harassed. The one she dreads, Andy Evans (mostly referred to as "monster"), continues to show up in the book just to taunt Melinda.
"Melinda used to be such a good student. I can't see where we went wrong," is what her parents would say at one of the many parent teacher conferences.
They were all held due to Melinda's lack of effort in the high school. Throughout the book few people learn about Melinda being raped, even those she tells simply don't believe her.
All in all I thought this book was very good as I came away with many strong messages. The one message that really stuck out was always listen to someone they might be telling the truth. This wasn't followed by many of Melinda's old friends that didn't believe her about the rape.
Rating:
Summary: Great, Fast read
Review: Speak was an excellent book. My English teacher was telling most of the girls in my class to read it and I decided to buy it and read it myself. I was instantly captivated. Melinda's circumstances made me feel for her and wish that i could help her or at least be her friend in a sea of people who just didn't understand.
I read this book in two days and it took two days because I had to work and was tired. Otherwise it would have taken about one day for me to finish this awesome book. Speak gives you an inside look about what it's like to be the outcast. Melinda has some amazing lines in the book and I underlined a lot of them. I'm sure reading it the second time I'll find even more. She mixes humor with the seriousness of a very trying time in the life of a teenager.
Rating:
Summary: review
Review: In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a troubled girl named Melinda Sordino had been living her freshman year at Syracuse High School with her tongue emotionally tied in knots. Melinda forces herself to keep a huge secret from every soul while staying away from her biggest fear- Andy Evans. Melinda got off to a bad start at school by calling the police on a senior end-of-summer party because of a horrible attack by Andy.
She began the year with one friend, Heather, who she was with often. But soon enough, Heather left Melinda to try and join the "popular" clique. With no friends left, she is abandoned as an outcast with no place to go for safety. She has very little communication with her parents as well as with the world around her. The one hope for that communication with her family is leaving sticky notes on the kitchen table. The only thing that interests her seems to be working in art class where she gets help expressing herself from the teacher, Mr. Freeman.
The author makes you not only watch the life of Melinda spin in circles but really feel the agony that she is going through on the inside. I personally enjoyed reading the story. Page after page, I wondered what would happen next. There was a very good use of foreshadowing which led up to the moment Melinda would speak and confront her fears. Anyone who has a sensitive soul will have a place in their heart for Melinda after looking into her life through this book. I would recommend this for people ages 13 and up.
Rating: 
Summary: Blah
Review: I can honestly say i didn't like this book. The story went on for ever, even thouggh it was only 200 pages. It was boring and the characters were un-exciting. The story-line could have been so much better if the author told her secrete in the beginning instead of the very end. The idea of this girl going on and on and on about her problem and not even telling us what it is.Maybe if she said it at the beginning i wouldn't hate the charcter so much. She just sat there and let her stupid friends make fun of her and everything. If your into low-self esteem and un-exciting characters this book is for you. but if your like me and like those tough, strong and cool characters I don't recomend this book.
|
