Rating: 
Summary: An incredible experience
Review: While on vacation, my cousin stayed in a hotel across from [...]. She bought two books for "young adults", one of them being Speak. She lent me Speak while she read her other one. As soon as I got into it, I couldn't put it down! I finished it in one day. I had three pages left when I was called me down to dinner. I yelled down, "Just one more minute!" But they told me my food was getting cold. I ran downstairs, shoveled down my food, then ran back up and finished it. This is an incredible book that I could realte to very well because I myself am an outcast. I could understand how Melinda felt. I told my cousin about this book and she dropped the other one to read Speak. I loved this book. It teaches kids about drinking and [...]. I highly recomend this book to teenagers.
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Summary: Speak
Review: Mel didn't want to tell what had really happened at that party, not even her recently ex-best friend. She called the cops and busted up the party, she went from having a group of people to having no one but the peppy new girl. Her grades were uncharacteristicly low and she didn't take care of herself. She would talk to very few people and art became her outlet. Her work showed pain, her suffering which she kept to herself. When she speaks about what did happen that night where everything went so good, so wrong, everyone thinks she is jealous. As a high school student, I realized that popularity has so much control over everyone that innocent people are ripped to shreds. This was one of those books where i stayed up till 2a.m. reading it, those are the best kind of books. I hope everyone that reads this will think about their actions towards others without knowing the whole story. Though it ends on a good note, you wish it would continue, but you know everything will be okay for Mel in the end.
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Summary: A Hit at Camp
Review: I sent this book to my 15 year old daughter at camp. She tells me everyone else in her bunk read it too. I wasn't sure whether she'd like it because of the rape, but there's a lot of empowering going on in the story. She says the other kids became interested in the book because she kept gasping and groaning and cheering. All agreed that it was an excellent book.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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