Summary

=Summary of this book : = = At an 8th grade end-of-the-year party, Melinda was raped by a popular boy. Confused and distraught, she dials 911, but quickly hangs up. The police track her call and bust up the party. She is too humiliated to confide in anyone, so she suffers all summer in silence. As if being a Freshman isn't hard enough, the next school year begins with her being an outcast. Ridiculed as being the girl who called the police during the party, she is tortured by her peers. She withdraws further and further into herself. Fortunately, Melinda finds an outlet in an Art assignment, as well as an advocate in her Art teacher. This is a story of the human spirit. It reveals to what depths we can sink into depression, as well as, how we can heal and rise again. = = = = This book literally tore my heart out!! I couldn't put it down, and when I read the very last page....I closed the book....and sobbed. It had such a dramatic effect on me. Being the mother of two girls, I felt so close to Melinda, the main character, and wanted to help her so badly. I felt like she should have confided in her mother. I felt so strongly about this I made my older daughter read it. I believe this is a good way to open up a dialogue about empowering young girls to reveal when a sexual assault occurs and to never suffer in silence. = = = = I love this book!!! Five stars! = = = = = = Below is an indepth wikipedia summary: = Wikipedia.com = = //**Speak**// is a 1999 novel by [|Laurie Halse Anderson] about a girl named [|Melinda Sordino] who is an outcast as a high school [|freshman] due to reasons later revealed in the book. It was made into a [|film of the same name] in 2004. The novel was a //[|New York Times]// and //[|Publishers Weekly]// bestseller. [//[|citation needed]//] //Speak// was also named a [|Printz Honor book] in 2000.[|[][|1][|]]

Plot summary A few weeks before her freshman year of high school, Melinda Sordino and her friend Rachel are invited to a high school party. There, Melinda gets drunk and meets a senior, Andy Evans, who takes her to a secluded part of the woods and [|rapes] her. She calls 911 and the police break up the party for underage drinking, arresting some of the kids. Numb and alone, Melinda walks miles home to an empty house. In the following weeks she tells no one what happened, and as a result, no one realizes she was raped. She becomes depressed. All her friends and the party-goers are angry with her for getting them into trouble, and ostracize her once school starts. Desperate for friends, Melinda becomes friendly with a new girl, Heather, who clings to Melinda only to abandon her when she gets the chance to join a popular clique. As Melinda's depression worsens, she begins to skip school, withdraws from her parents, and aspires to do nothing more than take a nap. She creates a makeshift hide-away in an abandoned janitor's closet at school, where she sleeps during the day or hides when she is feeling anxious. Her only solace is art class, taught by Mr. Freeman, who encourages his students to express themselves. Over time, Mr. Freeman seems to have an impact on Melinda's view of things. When the school year is almost over, she befriends David Petrakis, her lab partner. She also begins to question her feelings about him. When her former best friend, Rachel, begins dating Andy, Melinda feels obligated to tell her about the rape. The response is intense hostility, but eventually Rachel acknowledges the truth and dumps Andy. As the school year comes to a close, Melinda returns to her janitor's closet to gather some things she left inside it. Andy confronts her, accusing her of fabricating the assault, saying that she consented and is jealous of his relationship with Rachel. When he attempts to rape her again, she screams, breaks a mirror, and she holds a shard of glass up to his neck, saying, "I said no." Fortunately, Melinda's former friend Nicole and the [|lacrosse] team hear her scream from the closet and come to her aid. On the last day of school, Melinda stays late to finish her art project and finishes the course with an [|A+], though she is facing summer school for failing the rest of her classes. As the student body hears the story and realizes the truth about what happened at the party, Melinda goes from social pariah to something of a hero. Mr. Freeman prompts her to tell him her story, helping Melinda to finally come to terms with what happened to her and move on with her life.

[[|edit]] Characters

 * **[|Melinda Sordino]** – The main protagonist and narrator of //Speak//. She is a teenager who considers herself an outcast, and is depressed and lonely. After being raped by Andy Evans at a party, she becomes secluded from her friends and for the most part ceases speaking.
 * **Andy Evans** – The main antagonist of the book, Andy is a popular senior who attends Merryweather High School. He rapes freshman Melinda at a party. Andy is also known as "Andy Beast" and "IT" in Melinda's thoughts.
 * **Heather Billings** – A new girl from Ohio at the beginning of the school year. She is very social and at first befriends Melinda, but later ditches her for a clique called "the Marthas".
 * **Ivy** – Melinda's friend. They grow apart after the party, but are reunited through their art class.
 * **Rachel Bruin (Rachelle)** – Melinda's former best friend, she attends Merryweather High School. She is popular, uptight, selfish, and a poor friend. Rachel stopped being her friend after Melinda called 9-1-1 at a party, not knowing that she had been raped. She later begins dating Andy Evans.
 * **David Petrakis** – Melinda's highly academic lab partner. He develops feelings for Melinda, but never expresses them. He also argues his rights.
 * **Mr. Freeman** – Melinda's overly enthusiastic art teacher. He is the only adult who understands Melinda's pain, and encourages her to express it in her art.

[[|edit]] Censorship
Due to its controversial subject matter, //Speak// has often been challenged. In the Platinum Edition of //Speak//, released 2006, Anderson spoke out against [|censorship]. In material printed at the end of the novel, following an interview regarding the content of the book, Anderson wrote: > But censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them.[|[][|2][|]]

[[|edit]] Film adaptation
The story was adapted into a [|2004 film], which was directed by Jessica Sharzer and starred [|Kristen Stewart] as Melinda Sordino.

[[|edit]] Translations
The book has been translated into Chinese and is sold in [|Taiwan] under the title of //I No Longer Keep Quiet// (我不再沉默),[|[][|3][|]][|[][|4][|]][|[][|5][|]] and into Dutch by [|Hans Heesen] with the name //Silent as a Grave// ("Zwijg als het graf"). It was also translated into Spanish with the name //¡Habla!// which could be translated as "Talk!" (referring to either a male or female) and into German with the name //Sprich!// which is the command "Speak!". The book is also translated in Finnish with the name //Lukossa//. The word itself is hard to translate in English, but it means quite like "Locked in" or "locked." The book was translated into Hungarian with the title //Hadd mondjam el//, which means "Let Me Tell You".

[[|edit]] Interpretation
According to Jennifer Hubert, Melinda is mute out of fear, since she calls the police about the a party at the end of the summer. Her muteness also stands in for her overall difficulty communicating with her parents.[|[][|6][|]] In the novel, Melinda says, "My throat is always sore, my lips raw...Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze.... It's like I have some kind of spastic [|laryngitis]."[|[][|7][|]]

[[|edit]] References

 * 1) **[|^]** [|"2000 Michael L Printz Award"]. American Library Association . [] . Retrieved 2011-01-03.
 * 2) **[|^]** [|Anderson, Laurie Halse] (1999). //Speak//. United States: Farrar Straus Giroux. [|ISBN] [|0-14-240732-1].
 * 3) **[|^]** [|"Educational listing Taiwan ?"] . [] . Retrieved 2007-02-14.
 * 4) **[|^]** [|"Findbook Taiwan"]. //Findbook.tw// . [] . Retrieved 2007-02-14.
 * 5) **[|^]** [|"Books.com Taiwan"]. //Books.com.tw// . [] . Retrieved 2007-02-14.
 * 6) **[|^]** Hubert, Jennifer []
 * 7) **[|^]** Anderson, p. 50-51
 * [|Anderson, Laurie Halse] (October 1999). //Speak// (1st ed.). Farrar Straus Giroux. [|ISBN] [|0374371520].