Search - Speak

Divided into the four marking periods of an academic year, the novel, narrated by Melinda Sordino, begins on her first day as a high school freshman. No one will sit with Melinda on the bus. At school, students call her names and harass her; her best friends from junior high scatter to different cliques and abandon her. Yet Anderson infuses the narrative with a wit that sustains the heroine through her pain and holds readers' empathy. A girl at a school pep rally offers an explanation of the heroine's pariah status when she confronts Melinda about calling the police at a summer party, resulting in several arrests. But readers do not learn why Melinda made the call until much later: a popular senior raped her that night and, because of her trauma, she barely speaks at all. Only through her work in art class, and with the support of a compassionate teacher there, does she begin to reach out to others and eventually find her voice. Through the first-person narration, the author makes Melinda's pain palpable: "I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special." Though the symbolism is sometimes heavy-handed, it is effective. The ending, in which her attacker comes after her once more, is the only part of the plot that feels forced. But the book's overall gritty realism and Melinda's hard-won metamorphosis will leave readers touched and inspired.

I almost passed this book along without reading it, and I'm so glad I didn't! I'm not usually that taken with books written in the present tense, and I didn't realize this one was at first. I'm not sure why, but it can put me off a little and with Mt. TBR looming large, that would normally mean the book would keep getting passed over. But it fell open as I picked it up to move it to the To Be Mailed pile, and what I saw there was enough to make me sit down and read the whole thing.

This is fantastically written! The protagonist is wonderful, completely real, and fully a teenager. I wanted to cheer with her and hold her hand through her hard times. The author has captured high school with all its terrible nuances, and I felt I was reliving the experience with Melinda (except this time I didn't hate it so much!). I swear, I actually had that social studies teacher, and for the same type of class, too! The only part that didn't fit with me was naming the cliques the way she did -- in fact, it gave me a few odd flashes off Margaret Atwood when they named one the Marthas -- but then, all my schools were much too small to have enough different cliques to bother with differentiating them.

Anyway, this book about dealing with the aftermath of rape does indeed deserve all the praise it's received. It handles the subject matter without being sad or morose, and with a surprising amount of sarcastic humor. Highly recommended, even if this is not your usual sort of read.

But oh my gosh -- a normal Thanksgiving at Melinda's house sounded more like Halloween!

I truely believe that anyone who has, works with, teaches or comes in any sort of regular contact with teens needs to read this book! The adults in this story missed so many signs and i really think it could teach adolescents and the adults around them so much!

I am an adult who likes young adult books. This one wasn't terrible but also wasn't that great for me.

Melinda begins high school as the outcast who called the police to a party that took place in the summer before the start of school. She has never been asked why she called the police and her best friends have abandoned her.

Melinda carries a very real secret with a lot of pain involved. She is holding back speaking to most people and her grades and social life come to a dismal fall.

Melinda has quite the personality, something that the reader is aware of, but not necessarily the people that she deals with.

This book is very well written, you really do feel Melinda's pain, you just don't know the reason behind it until the end of the book. So sad that people she considered her friends don't bother to try to find out the reasoning behind her call to 911.

Says so much about the torment that is adolescence, the hormonal changes and angst to becoming one's self.

I loved this book. The movie is awesome too!