I love this book. A favorite, if anyone (self included) has ever attempted to quelch your right or ability to speak you will treasure this book. ( )

Since the ninth grade I had always wanted to read Speak, because a girl in my speech class used it for her piece. Over the summer, a few of my friends who take AP Psychology were reading it for their summer assignments and had nothing but positive things to say about. Once I began reading this book, I could not put it down. The book is written as journal entries by the main character Melinda, a teenage girl with a huge secret. After getting raped at a high school summer party, she calls the police and gets everyone busted. The following school year, Melinda is left alone. All of her friends abandon her and she is known as the snitch. Throughout the story, she must cope with her devastating experience herself, because she keeps it a secret from the world. After a long and depressing year, she manages to muster up the courage to face her problem. She stands up to the guy who raped her and speaks her mind, ending her period of silence.

I would highly reccommend this book to any teenage girl. Anderson's writing style is filled with so much emotion and pain, that while reading one can start feeling depressed themselves. Melinda's story is powerful, and inspiring, and I feel that many teenagers could relate to her story. ( )

Melinda feels lonely and depressed because she hides her deepest secret from everyone around her. She bottles up her feelings inside her and she refuses to tell anyone that she was raped by a senior in her school. Because she is unable to talk to anyone about it, she becomes withdrawn and starts to feel alienated from the kids at school. She might not have had to endure so much suffering if she shared her feelings with someone who cared. Laurie Halse Anderson's style of telling Melinda's story through first person point of view allows the reader to experience the many feelings and emotions that Melinda did. It encouraged me to think more about what may be going on in other peoples lives. You never know what someone has gone through so you should never judge someone by their appearance. You should take your time to get to know a person you don't know before jumping to conclusions about them. This book also encourages people to not be afraid to speak up when they need to reach out to others for some help.

I recommend this book to teenagers because many people may be going through a similar situation and this might be able to help them. This book might encourage them to speak up and talk to someone about it instead of keeping it bottled up inside. ( )

I am so happy with my decision to read "Speak" for my psychology class assignment and I highly recommend it to others. Laurie Halse Anderson brings together several complex ideas in such a way that you just can't put the book down.

Melinda Sorino was just a typical teenager until "that night." A typical author would tell the reader what happened "that night" right away, but to put an invigorating twist on things, Anderson left her experiences a mystery. Throughout the novel, we experience the psychological terror that Melinda went though while dealing with her recurrent thoughts of "that night." Some of this psychological terror is represented by her silence throughout the novel, her slip into depression, her inability to "fit in," and inability to form relationships. Melinda's inability to fit in and form relationships made her everyday routine, going to school, making friends, communicating with people, so much harder for her. It is not until after we experience the weight of Melinda's everyday baggage, feel her loneliness, her depression, her mistrust, that we find out that on "that night" she was raped. ( )

One of my friends recommended this book to me, and I'm glad she did. The main character, Melinda Sorino, experiences her first high school party, and in doing so, she gets raped by an older boy. She calls 911 and the police come to break up the party along with arresting a few students. Melinda immediately feels alone emotionally and physically when her friends isolate her because they are angry she called the police. She chooses not to tell anyone about the rape. I could feel her fall into depression when she no longer spoke to anyone because we all experience situations we wish we could forget and that never happened. I couldn't help but feel happy when she started communicating with a new girl in school, Heather. One of Melinda's old best friends becomes infatuated with the guy that raped her. I sensed her struggle to build up the courage to finally tell someone about the rape and begin her process of healing. Overall I greatly enjoyed the book, and think that any teenager can develop a connection with this book.