Booklight: Speak
Imagine it’s your first day of high school. You have lost your original friend group, and the first thing you hear from your ex-best friend is “I hate you.”
In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a girl named Melinda Sordino has just begun her high school life and she has begun it alone in the world. She has lost her original friends, which she was incredibly close to. We follow Melinda’s life as she begins to sink into an unspoken depression.
This is a book that will follow me forever, and I definitely would recommend this to any reader who likes young adult books. I would rate this a 10/10.
When a new girl named Heather comes into her school befriends her, she has a new friend for a while, until she leaves her side for a clique called the Marthas. We see her depression deepen, as she begins to skip school and becoming even more distant to her already distant family members. Before high school had begun—Melinda went to a senior party. She gets raped by Andy Evans, otherwise known as it in the story. As people get caught and arrested, she runs and forgets bout what happened at the party. She doesn’t tell anyone, and in fact, sinks into silence after that happened to her.
But one day, when Andy Evans invades her sanctuary, the janitor’s closet—the truth has to finally surface. Now, Melinda has to stop her ex-best friend, Rachel, from getting hurt by it. In the end of this story, Melinda Sordino truly learns the value of what it is to speak.
I liked Speak because it followed the perspective of a relatable character and truly defined the pains that we as teenagers must learn to live through. Near the end, when Melinda gets bolder, it becomes truly inspiring and real.
