ihateu10666's Full Review: Laurie Halse Anderson - Speak
Melinda (the main character) and I both agree that school is an unusual thing. For one, I have to read a novel of some sort in science class every day. I always thought that we could be efficient and use that time for something like test tubes or Bunsen burners or something, but perhaps I'm wrong.
So it's an average day: I'm stuck without a book. So I rush over to the English room and pick up a book. The cover has eyes of different colors and leaves all around. It intrigues me. Later I learn that the book intrigues me as well.
Melinda Sordino is, or maybe was, a pretty much average girl in an average school. Her school has cliques, stall vandalism (what she calls a chat room), and a smorgasbord of students. Come to think of it, maybe Melinda goes to my school, since it sounds so similar. But continuing, she was an average girl with friends and family. One summer night she was invited to a party which included drinking, dancing, and an event that would somehow lead her to ultimate solitude.
She meets IT that night. IT is going further than a nuisance. IT is horrible, has done horrible things, and flippantly gets away with it because IT is a sexy, popular upperclassman.
Melinda calls the cops that night, which ultimately break up the party. Everyone deserts her, and people she has no contact with hate her, too. She is a self-described outcast. But people hate her because they claim she broke up the party. Only Melinda and her mind know what really happened that night.
However, she does find one friend. Her friend is Heather from Ohio. You could describe Heather as a "sell-out" (a term I picked up from some talk show about girls in school). A sell-out is a girl who is friendly to everyone, reaches the top of the social ladder and blows all her previous friends away like a leaf-blower incredibly p!ssed that fall has come. Once Heather moves in with a group of over-acheiving yet totally nerd-less girls, she leaves Melinda friendless, claiming that she's too depressed for her.
Melinda's parents only take note of her sadness when her school reports that Melinda refuses to speak and is getting poor grades. She speaks to her parents through sticky notes on a counter: "Buy milk @ 3:00" "Need ride 2 mall" "Good luck on your math test." (not actual sticky notes). Her parents become exhausted trying to figure out how to help her. Not even they know of the horror she witnessed that night.
The book's writing style is the first one I've seen of it's kind. It hardly has a name and can only be described like a weblog, you know, where girls leave titles for days. It's pretty brilliant and more evidence of my blog addiction. Maybe there are chapters, which Melinda divides into terms (school terms, half-semesters, quarters) and ends with her report card (which is generally a C or D average). The writing format is like reading someone's mind. Technically, you are. It's Melinda narrating and thinking rather than speaking it out. She communicates only with herself, and basically we're reading her communication. That's something I've always wanted to see, considering I always think of things that are incredibly intriguing and plan to jot them in my journal but forget. If only we all had little Melinda typewriters in our minds.
If you've stuck with my reviews and read them for a long time, you'll know I like to see a movie or book I can relate to. All I can say is "Wow" because it seems our school was stalked for this book. They went into our bathroom stalls, our cliques, everything. We even have our own little "Marthas" group where they all wear matching clothes and help around and get A+ and things. And, like Melinda, they are horribly, utterly annoying.
Melinda has intriguing thoughts. Her mind is an interesting conversationalist. She brings up fresh observations of all the cliques in school and makes points. My favorite paragraph in the entire book has to be the one where she's describing how she first began puberty and her mom bought her a book to help her be happy about the joys. Melinda cynically and sarcastically tells herself that her mom complains about her grey hairs and sagging body parts and tells her to like having growing feet and acne. If I could just have that book with me right now and flawlessly reference it (I got it from a school library).
The only thing that got me was the ending. It was vague, a symbolic telling again. Like Thirteen, it was a bland scene (only Melinda is saying something instead of screaming). But then again, like Thirteen, it's a great book and the end is a mere flaw. After all, you never get to the end of the book until the end (which can be in a week, two hours, it took me 5 days to finish the book).
I craved this book senselessly and didn't mind that we read in a science class. I loved it. It's one of the books you check out from a school library and decide to buy so you can read it over and over again. I recommend this book to any middle schooler for anything: having to read it in science class, a book report, reading it for fun.
When Melinda Sordino's friends discover she called the police to quiet a party, they ostracize her, turning her into an outcast -- even among kids she...More at Barnes & Noble.com
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