Speak

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I did not expect this book to be so good. It deals with delicate subjects and the way Anderson writes is wonderful.

Melinda is the outcast after she calls the cops at a wild, beer-drinking party the summer before. Every one hates her and even her used-to-be best friends treat her like she is nothing. Melinda is depressed and doesn't know how to get herself out of the rut she's in. Her was-best friend Rachel/Rachelle starts to go out with IT, the boy who 'hurt' her at the party. Melinda deals with it for a short while, but finally, brings up the courage to talk to Rachel and tell her what 'Andy Beast/IT' did to her.

This book is amazing and you can see Melinda's transformation from "scared bunny rabbit" to a slowly strenthening girl. A great book. Worth owning and reading over and over.

~Atalanta

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This book is amazing. When it ended I was ah struck and felt impowered. You can not put this book down, it will grip you from the beginnigng to the end. Laurie Halse anderson's writing is awsome, its funny and sarcastic.
Any girl can relate with Melinda on some level. Over the summer at a high school party after drinking to much Melinda is raped. In fear she calls the cops, but when she realizes what shes doing its to late they are already coming. The party is broken up, and now people totally hate her. What makes things worse is her parents are always fighting and they don't understand her, and the only one who did her friend Katie has decided to join the hateing of Melinda. This story follows a younge girls struggle throug everyday things while she tries to forget her rape. But when she sees her rapist everyday at school shes forced to come to grips with it. This book is great and allows you to follow a girls life as she learns to stand up for herself and finally speak.

Rating:
Summary: Speak
Review: Speak is a realistic fiction book about a girl named Melinda Sordino. Melinda is hated by her friends and everyone else because she ruined an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Melinda tries to go through high school without any friends and any guidance. She gets bad grades, scolded by her parents, and hated by people that she doesn¡¯t even know because of the party. Melinda convinces herself to completely forget about something horrible that happened to her the night of the party but it is taking over her life. Speak is a good book for teens because it explains exactly how hard it is to fit in and how you need friends to get through tough times. I enjoyed this book because it is funny and has a surprise in the end.
I would recommend this book. I¡¯m pretty sure that teenage girls would enjoy reading this book because it revolves around a teenage girls life and lets you understand how hard high school is. This book was a definite page-turner because each page was either funny, had a surprise on it or taught you something. I really liked this book and I am sure that anyone who reads it will like it just as much as I did!

Rating:
Summary: speakyourmind
Review: Speak is one of those great books that you read, then pass on to all of your friends. It was a truly great peace of writing, that made me laugh and, even though I admit this grudgingly, cry.If you were to buy any book this year I would recomend
Speak.

Rating:
Summary: The Inside Scoop on "Speak"
Review: The book "Speak" is about a 9th grade outcast named Melinda Sordino. Melinda Sordino lives in Syracuse, New York and attends Merryweather High, where her old friends and students she doesn't even know hate her because she busted an end-of-summer party, by calling the cops. But no one knows the real reason as to why she called the cops. At Merryweather there are the Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of American, Big Hair Chix, the Martha's, Suffering Artists, Goths, and Shredders, in each group Melinda is not wanted. The plot of this story is Melinda's battle against what happened to her at that end-of-summer party. I think Laurie Halse Anderson is trying to say that if something ever dangerous happens to you, you can't just shut up about it and let it haunt you, you need to let it out. The part I liked most about the book is the chapter called "Stupid Stupid" I like this part about the book because she's thinking about the two "Melindas" in her head, and I thought it was funny because she's having conversations with herself. For example: "That's what it feels like when I walk home. The two Melindas fight every step of the way. Melinda One is pissed that she couldn't go to the party." Also, in the book I don't like how her parents yell at her because she won't talk. I think one of the most common mistakes parents make is yelling at their child for not talking, it will not make your child talk, it'll make your child scared to talk, if anything. One thing I didn't understand in this book is why her friends stopped talking to her because she called the cops; they didn't even bother to ask her why she did it. What kind of "friends" are they? I think females in 8th-10th grade with any reading level would enjoy this book the most, because it deals with some of the same problems they face in real life.

Rating:
Summary: Best YA Book I've Ever Read
Review: Speak is one of the very few teen novels that have not at any point made me a)gag b)lose all faith in human nature or c) stop reading in disgust. It's perhaps the only YA book I've ever read that manages to merge a wonderful, likable yet very obviously flawed heroine (along with a superbly developed set of supporting characters), lots of wry, frequently hilarious social observation (without ever descending into slapstick) and a very dangerous yet eventually touching topic that within the hands of a lesser author might have turned the book into a preachy girlpower-infused lecture. Instead, it distinguishes itself as one of the best books around right now for teens.

Speak opens very predictably like almost every other title with a similar topic. Girl waits for bus. Girl has deep, dark, delicious secret. No one wants to talk to girl. Girl will now go boo-hoo. Let's all feel sorry for girl and want to give her a big, bear hug. Or not. I'm not even sure how Speak manages to be so colossally different in quality from the other kajillion teen novels around. Maybe it's Melinda, the "girl" who manages to drag the novel out of boring mush mode. She's tough--but in extremely subtle ways and also heartbreakingly vulnerable. When one of the girls from the perky, cheerful clique she hangs out with says she "looks like she has a disease", she goes to cry in the girls' bathroom. A different author would turn this particular episode into a big, deep sympathyfest with lots of ridiculous metaphors and philosophizing. Laurie Halse Anderson however let's the reader do the thinking, the piecing and yes, the philosophizing. Maybe this is one of the things which sets Speak apart from its histrionic, fluff-filled contemporaries.

But characters and writing aside, Speak's greatest strength is that it manages to successfully get inside the teenage mind without having to resort to condescension and downtalking. Anderson uses few words but the picture she paints of Melinda's high school: a picture that totally lacks any or illusions or nostalgia is brutal, haunting and brilliant. While Anderson isn't a wonderful sensory writer (her strength is character development), it's impossible to read Speak and not become mired in its setting: cafeteria smells, cheerleaders, cliques, classes. Anderson writes with a vivid clarity that makes Speak truly one-of-a-kind.

Rating:
Summary: Speak
Review: I would recommend Speak for 7th grade and up. This amazing novel talks about the troubles of a freshman that at the end of a summer party called the police, and now none of her friends will talk to her. High school should be one of the greatest times of her life, but the only thing she enjoys is art class. Then end of the school year is coming and still she won't speak or tell the truth. Once again her grades start to fall and soon she begins to tell people what really happened that night. I think this book is a wonderful lesson to human life in that when ever something goes wrong nothing can be more valuable than speech. Also this is a tender, loving story that tells you about the struggles of a teenage outcast.

Rating:
Summary: Sad but true to life about the world of High School
Review: "Speak" is an amazing book. The main character rarely has any dialogue, but we are so inside her head that it is like she is talking to us. The reason that she does not speak and is ridiculed in her high school is something that we learn over time, as Melinda begins to understand what happened to her that night that she called the cops at her first high school party...

The chapters are short (if they could be called chapters) and quick to read. The book is divided into marking periods, so it's easy to see how Melinda progresses through the year. Because everything that we know is reported to us by Melinda, it's possible that she exaggerates and embellishes a bit. My favorite part is when she tells us what is going on in her classes and the assignments.

This is a great book with a good message about the importance of speaking up when something is wrong. Excellent book - for ages 13 and up - 5/5

Rating:
Summary: Lala's Review!
Review: I really enjoyed reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. I thought that it had a really good story, like it's very believeable. I really liked the book because she describes the characters so well and i can relate to the kids at school and how they're treating her. It really depicts how children are when they're at school and what they go through. Plus it had a lot of humor like how the main character, (Melinda) describes the teachers and the kids at school. I think that in all it was a good book & something a teenager would really enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: uncannily truthful
Review: Speak was the very first book I had read from author Louise Halse Anderson, and as soon as I had placed the book down, I immediately had to read the rest of her work. She is the type of writer whom is able to address and exploit that which such books as 'Letters from the Inside,' by John Marsden, had failed to recognise and to draw one into its depths, into its pure individuality and emotional and psychological pain, trying to come to terms with the narrator was dealing with.

Melinda is starting year nine with internal scars, scars she did not have until one unforgettable night, one which pushed the young, innocent adolescent off the road of sanity, and into the path of self destruction.
Now, unlike many characters of such books that deal with these kinds of emotional and psychological problems, whom have people to turn to and to confine in, Melinda, the narrator and main character, has no one to turn to. Her friends have deserted her, the entire school has shunned her, and her parents are too caught up in their own selfish, conceited lives to realize she's hurting inside. Melinda, unable to let herself out through socializing and talking to someone, is able to express her pain through her art, but it isn't enough, she needs someone to talk to, someone to love her and to listen to her.
She goes through almost an entire school year of social torture and neglect, when she finally finds the courage to face her fears and defeat the monster that is hiding under the bed, to stand up for herself and to finally and truly 'speak.'