What is speak about

He encourages her to use her voice and shows interest in her artwork. Melinda also befriends her lab partner, David Petrakis. Like Mr. Freeman, David pushes Melinda to speak up. Over the course of the school year, the story of Melinda's past unfolds.

She begins to admit to herself what happened and gradually stops running away from the memory of it. She still, however, remains silent.

In the spring, her former best friend, Rachel , begins to date Andy Evans. Horrified by this, Melinda knows that she must warn Rachel about the danger of spending time with Andy. Melinda opens up to Rachel about the rape by exchanging notes with her in the library. Rachel is receptive until Melinda names Andy the perpetrator, at which point she angrily leaves the room. However, Rachel does, in fact, listen to Melinda's story.

The next weekend, she publicly leaves and humiliates Andy at the prom. The following week, Melinda decides she is ready to move out of her janitor's closet. She no longer feels like hiding. While cleaning it out, however, Andy enters and locks her in the room with him. She has stolen some late passes, so she uses the closet as a hideout to avoid teachers she dislikes and painful interactions with her former friends.

Her only solace at school is art class, where she is working on a year-long project to create various interpretations of a tree. In the school hallways, she occasionally sees IT, a name she has given to senior Andy Evans, and she slowly begins to face what he did to her. Whenever he sees her, he antagonizes her in ways that make her relive her initial experience with him. She grows more despondent and even ditches whole days of school.

Her parents and guidance counselor try to get her to open up about her poor academic performance, but Melinda refuses to speak to them. Springtime arrives, and Melinda finds solace working in the garden. She and David plan a protest in social studies class over an oral report she is supposed to present, and she stands up to Heather by refusing to help her decorate for the Senior Prom. Melinda feels compelled to tell Rachel the truth about Andy and what happened that night.

Seeing that, Melinda feels like she can fly. When she is clearing her items out of the closet, Andy Evans barges in, attacks Melinda, and tries to rape her again. People who had heard her scream run for help. With hours left in the school year, Melinda finds herself a sort of hero. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Sumamry Plot Overview Chapter Summaries. Sumamry Plot Overview. Next section Chapter Summaries.

But guess what word is closer to what living that terrible experience is? The word rape conveys it better, at the very least it'll make people squirm uncomfortably. TMI ALERT view spoiler [Yet the moment you want to speak about it, nobody will listen to you, even people who are willing to lend you an ear and a shoulder when someone close to you dies will do everything in their power to avoid listening to you when you want to talk about the worst moment of your life.

They'll immediatly will give you a version of "let it go". It's not like they don't love you or don't want to help you. On the contrary, they might want you to move on with your life and stop thinking about tragic stuff. Problem is that after something like that there's no way to move on.

Or maybe there is and I just haven't found it yet. I just have learned to keep my personal tragedy to myself although I've been in therapy and counceling for a while hide spoiler ] That's what this book is about, and for such a dark topic, I think the author did a wonderful job using a beautiful prose, almost poetic, to talk about how SCARY rape is.

She never went graphic with that. The movie is in my humble opinion, way much more explicit and visual, but the book wasn't explicit. Laurie Halse Anderson really wrote about the subject with enough delicacy to not scare the reader away, but still she managed to do it on a realistic way.

TMI view spoiler [ I had no way of knowing, back when I first read Speak that 2 years later it would happen to me but in a way this book helped me a lot. Somewhere in my subconsious was the notion that it wasn't my fault and I thank this book for that. As long as this book is used to elicit discussions on rape culture and parents talk to their kids honestly this book should be mandatory reading. I repeat, there's much than just drama in this book, it's actually a quick read and enjoyable despite the dark topic.

Unlike A court of mist and fury the purpose of this book isn't to portray erotic scenes or sexual content because again, sexuality and rape are opposite concepts. This book conveys a powerful message that can help teenagers who are living in violent places. I'll repeat, maybe parents and children can read this together so that the parents can convey their values and their own views on consent.

Consider letting Melinda Sordino story enter your life. I did, and it was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel, it might sound cheesy, but that's the truth. View all 29 comments. View all 13 comments. And sometimes, life itself is crippling. You will undergo something that overtakes you, that consumes every waking thought, that fills you with fear and changes every aspect of your life and still you cannot talk about it.

To anyone, whether you have someone to confide in or not. Melinda is that girl. She is a misfit. A p 4 Stars. A pariah. A freshman, who everyone in her class hates. No one talks to her, except to make fun of her. Not until she called the cops at the end of a summer party and got caught doing so by her former best friend who now hates her for it.

And that was what did it. That party changed everything for Melinda. That one night. Not even her parents. No wonder she decided to keep quiet. At some point, Melinda finds herself in a situation wherein she realizes that must find her voice. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is full of emotion. It is captivating yet devastating. I was overwhelmed by the honesty that was portrayed by Melinda through out. This is a powerful YA novel about learning to accept the things you cannot change and finding the strength and power within to fight for yourself, no matter how difficult it may seem.

View all 34 comments. Library - Overdrive-ebook! Melinda Sordino, sarcastically witty, bright, and courageous, is very memorable character. A freshman in High School, We emphasized with her This is her story! There is so much honesty This story touches every part of us. Our mind and hearts are actively expanding.

View all 21 comments. Jul 02, Debra rated it it was amazing Shelves: traveling-frends-summer-reading-cha. So happy I did. This serves as a nice reminder that stepping outside of what we would normally choose can, and in this case, did pay off. High School. Some remember it as the happiest time of their lives while others are so happy when it is over that they never want to look back.

Where do you stand? Melinda is an outcast, a pariah, she has no friends. She is lonely, depressed, anxious and carrying 4. She is lonely, depressed, anxious and carrying a secret around with her.

Secret- six simple letters which can feel like a ton of bricks when one carries it around with them. This book shows how one night changed everything for her and destroyed her friendships and once happy life. Melinda called the police during a party and the entire school has turned on her. As the school year progresses, she deteriorates more. She begins to get bad grades, she skips school, she doesn't speak she doesn't confide in others, she only finds solace in her art.

Her art teacher is the only teacher in her school who shows an interest in her and encourages her to express herself through her art. Told with heartbreaking honesty and with devastating insight, speak shows the cruelty of high school students. The fragility of friendships, how warning signs are missed and how the ones who need it the most, often fall through the cracks.

Speak is well-written, poignant, and evokes emotion. This is a book I am reading well, I finished it first with my fifteen-year-old and will be discussing when both of us have completed it.

Great book in a great format for teens. There is a lot to discuss here. View all 33 comments. The writing was fantastic and Melinda was such an interesting character to read. I didn't totally LOVE everything about it, but overall it was a fantastic book. View all 3 comments. Yes, it was difficult to read and very intense, but it was extremely good! I sort of knew how it was going to end because I cheated and looked it up, but it was still so good to read this book.

I was glad that Anderson did not go into detail about the rape because that would have been too intense for me. The dialogue in her head remained realistic because no girl would want to replay the details over and over again. This novel was amazing because Melinda grew through her tragedy. I think that this book can be very therapeutic for many students. Plot summary: Melinda is starting high school with all the problems imaginable. For a while, things seem to work out between the two.

Unfortunately, Melinda keeps to herself all the time and barely speaks. She has a secret inside of her that torments all the words. Most of the school thinks she is weird and her parents and teachers think something is wrong with her.

They think she is just being a delinquent, but there is more to the story than what Melinda lets on. Melinda goes through the motions of school and barely passes. She makes some friends, but she is so scarred from the summer that she is still uncomfortable getting too close to anyone. Melinda does not trust anyone, nor can she trust herself. The only thing in school Melinda enjoys is her art class. She works hard all year by creating and letting her emotions flow through her art although she does not know it at the time.

As the year goes on, she encounters the boy who raped her. He knows that he still has the power over her and continues to use it to scare her into silence. However, when Andy starts dating Rachel, Melinda cannot stand back and let Andy do the same thing to her former best friend.

It takes a while for Melinda to get the courage to tell Rachel, but she finally does. Of course Rachel does not believe Melinda and she thinks that Melinda is just jealous, but Melinda at least tried. When Rachel breaks up with Andy because he was trying to do the same thing to her as he did to Melinda , Andy becomes furious and goes after Melinda. She fights him and makes enough commotion for her friends to come back to find out what was going on and Andy gets exposed for who he really is.

I would hope that I get journals that reflect on how much they have changed since that first year. Is there anything at all? View all 5 comments. Hmmmm I can definitely see how important this book is and would have been at the time of its publication, but the thing is, I was bored until the last 30 pages.

I felt really disconnected to the story and I don't know why. I am so glad that books like this exist in the YA genre though, and that this one was around a long time ago because these things happen and really do need to be discussed. Such an important message. View 1 comment. I know. A ton of people liked this book. I'm giving this crap a one star though.

I never did connect with this books main character. I finally was to the point where I didn't give a shit anymore when the big reveal came about why she was having so many problems. I felt somewhat sorry for her then but it still just didn't pull through enough for me. View all 23 comments.

I don't even remember what the context for this revelation was. It was right before class was about to start and I was just minding my own business. I was extremely socially phobic and carried around a drawing notebook and did the same sort of nervous lip-chewing thing and I was like, huh this sou Instagram Twitter Facebook Amazon Pinterest When I was a freshman, the girl behind me in one of my classes tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I reminded her of the girl in SPEAK.

I was extremely socially phobic and carried around a drawing notebook and did the same sort of nervous lip-chewing thing and I was like, huh this sounds like a trap. But when you're a kid and someone tells you that you remind them of a character in a book, you read the book. Because, you know, the rape thing. Don't get me wrong. I loved the book. With all the chipper, nostalgic YA fiction coming of age stories coming out with the plucky and indomitable heroines, it was so refreshing to read about a character who was miserable and didn't care who knew about it.

I can't tell you how many fucking people-- teachers alike-- told me to "smile" when I was young. In her case, her depression was a by-product of her trauma and social shaming. In my case, it was just depression. And that isn't to trivialize depression at all, but in my mind, at age fourteen, it felt a little strange to find myself relating to a character so strongly and yet not have the same sort of external reasons that she did.

It made me feel like my depression was unwarranted and maybe undeserved, which caused a lot of angst. I'm surprised more people don't like Melinda Sordino's character, to be honest. SPEAK has such mixed reviews among my friends. Some people took issue with Melinda's snarkiness which felt super accurate to me. Some took issue with the way rape was presented and treated which is a fair point-- especially since not all victims of sexual abuse have the same experiences, although this isn't something I can personally speak to with much authority.

Some people didn't like the writing style, which is also fair. It's formatted almost like a teen's notebook and it really does read like someone's found journal. Reading this book gave me all of the same feels that I got reading it the first time, and even though I'm slightly less jaded and misanthropic now than I was as a kid, I love the portrayal of adolescent angst.

It also talked about issues that not a lot of adults writing YA talked about at the time, or that weren't readily available and widely publicized if they were. This is a book I would recommend to any teen who is tired of reading sugary-sweet stories written by adults that kind of romanticize the high school experience and want to read something "real. Just, you know, maybe learn from my classmate and don't go around telling people that they remind you of Melinda Sordino.

Everyone got busted. Her parents aren't much help either, always fighting about what's best for Melinda and communicating through post-it notes on the refrigerator wall.

These are only a few of the things that have Melinda depressed. When what really happened at the senior party is revealed, it will be easy, although painful, "Speak" is about Melinda Sordino, an angst-filled freshman who is hated by all of her "best friends" because she called the cops during the end of the summer senior party.

When what really happened at the senior party is revealed, it will be easy, although painful, to understand Melinda's unbreakable silence. I just finished my second read through of the book, and I still loved it. I actually had to read this for school, which surprised me because of the subject matter. Anyway, "Speak" is a novel I think all teenagers should read. Melinda's voice, although cynical and outspoken, was dead-on and as a teenager I felt like I totally connected with her through the entire book.

I also loved the "tree" symbolism in Melinda's art class, subtle enough to not be cliche but powerful enough to make me feel growth. Some YA authors don't really understand how cliques and stuff work nowadays, but Anderson hit the nail on the head, which made me like the book even more. I stayed up to midnight last night finishing this novel, and I'm sure you will to once you get a hold of this book. View all 16 comments. Mar 07, Ruby Granger rated it really liked it.

I did really enjoy this book, even though the writing style was pretty simple It's such an important topic and I love that the reader only gradually grows to understand what has happened mirroring Melinda's memory. I would recommend to high school students. Even though some of the content is disturbing, it's an important book for teenagers to read -- and the writing style means it's really accessible.

View 2 comments. This book was extremely hard for me to read as it hit very, very close to home and for that reason, I just couldn't give it 5 stars.

Shelves: sub-trees-forest , women , award-national-book , genre-coming-of-age , groundbreaking , wordsmith , , award-dorothy-canfield-fisher , award-various , bage-young-adult. A powerful story! I don't think a 5 star book has to be perfect. No story is perfect. This story tells an amazing story, but the end has problems for me and I still love this book. When a book makes me feel so much and I simply can't put it down, that's a 5 star review. There isn't any way to review this without spoilers: Spoiler Warning: Melinda was at a senior party and called the cops and everyone knows and so she is now the 9th grade pariah and outcast.

The reason she really called the cops was A powerful story! The reason she really called the cops was she needed help. She was raped and didn't know what to do.

She couldn't speak after that. The rest of the year her grades tank and she has one somewhat friend. Art is the only class she feels safe in.

The whole year she barely speaks. She is alone, in pain and depressed and she can't deal with her wounds. She needs to speak and can't. It's only when her used to be best friend starts dating the same guy she had an encounter with that she does speak. The problem with the ending is we don't get to see the character arc.