Review - Speak May 4, 2008
Posted by Heather in books.Tags: fiction, YA books
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Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
From the back cover -
Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t know hate her from a distance. The safest place is to be alone, inside her own head. But even that’s not safe. Because there’s something she’s trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth.
My thoughts -
Like other bloggers have said about this book in the past, it’s a difficult book to say anything about because the main element to the story is something that’s hidden from the reader from the beginning and not revealed until close to the end of the book. The great majority of this YA novel consists of Melinda’s thoughts and feelings as she goes through her freshman year of high school a complete outcast. Obviously, as the summary implies, there’s something very big that caused Melinda to become such an outcast, but this something is a secret she’s keeping from everyone, her old friends, parents, teachers, even her guidance counselor. Personally, I figured out what that “something” was pretty easily but I have no plans to give it away to anyone who hasn’t read the book yet or wouldn’t be able to guess on their own. Speak is a very engrossing read, Melinda is a painfully real teenager, and above all else, this is a really great book for teens because I think it portrays the way things can happen in high school very well. I enjoyed it a lot, and best of all, it’s about 200 pages so I was able to read the entire thing in an afternoon!
9 stars.
Read Trish’s review here, Susan’s review here, Muerta’s review here, Stephanie’s review here, and Becky’s review here.
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I taught this to 9th graders for years and they absolutely loved it. It was gratifying to see kiddos actually WANT to read something and then recommend it to their friends… I agree with you — very engrossing!
Thanks for the reccomendations, Heather! I have also been meaning to ask you… I know you read an insane amount, and I am wondering how you find the time for it! Do you read more than one book at a time, when/where do you like to read, things like that. I always carry a book with me in my purse & read when the time arises, but I’m definately not anywhere close to reading as much as you do!
As a sidenote, have you read The Bright Forever? It’s sort of reminiscent of The Lovely Bones, and there’s a great deal of character development so far, which I am enjoying. Thought I’d make it as a reccomendation to you, if you haven’t yet read it. I’m only about halfway through, but I’m really liking it so far. Just picked it up on a whim at a book sale
[...] Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson (book addiction) (tags: laurie.halse.anderson speak young.adult suspense the.three.arrs depression selective.mutism) [...]
I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was a very clear portrait of what high school life can be like.
[...] Heather [...]
I always avoided this book and I’m not sure why. I think I thought it would be too triggering, or too scary, or something like that. But the more I hear about it and the more I idly flip through it in stores, the more I want to read it! Any day now….