Speak

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, at some point in our lifetime everyone has or will experience the feeling of exclusion or being labeled as an "outcast". Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is the quintessential read for a high school student struggling to fit in and procure his or her own voice. Speak follows Melinda Sordino throughout her freshmen year of high school. Within the opening pages of the novel, it becomes evident that Melinda is not only ostracized at school, but also despised by the entire student population. Although Melinda attempts to ignore it, she cannot help but dwell on the night that she and her best friend Rachel were invited to a senior party. As the book progresses Melinda relives the night of the party, in which she becomes intoxicated and is subjected to an occurrence of date rape. Confused and alone, Melinda dials 911 and forever goes down in history as the girl who called the cops on that fateful night. Now friendless, and more abandoned than ever, Melinda falls into a severe depression. She begins to live in a state of denial in which she has told no one about what truly occurred on the night of the party. As she lifelessly sulks through her first year of high school, she begins to withdraw from everyone, forms a habit of skipping school, and even creates a small hideaway in a janitor's closet. When Rachel begins dating Andy Evans, the senior who assaulted her, Melinda knows that she can no longer live in silence or else it will only be a matter of time before someone else gets hurt.

I truly enjoyed Speak for a number of reasons, the most probable being Anderson's writing style. The entire novel was written almost like a screenplay would be formatted, the dialogue set apart from the rest of the text:

Heather: "What do you think?"
Me: "You are a decorating genius."

I have to admit, I may have enjoyed reading this novel simply because I also enjoy reading screenplays. It was more detailed than a movie script, however, as Anderson did not simply rely on dialogue to tell the story, but also included paragraphs of detailed descriptions just like any regular novel would. I felt that this book became an eloquent novel/screenplay hybrid, which was both unique and intriguing. I also enjoyed the fact that the novel was an "easy read". By that, I do not mean that the plot material wasn't difficult or challenging to read morally, but rather that the book as a whole had a nice flow to it. While it never became a "page-turner" per say, I found myself reading for hours upon hours not because I was dying to find out what happened, but simply because it was an enjoyable experience.

The only criticism I had against Speak, was that I felt many of the characters were rather two-dimensional and lacked complete development. This however, is a completely personal opinion that I developed throughout the course of my reading. Otherwise I found Speak to be the heart-rending and emotional tale of a girl learning to find her voice and take responsibility for her actions. I thought Speak was both well-written as well as possessed an interesting plot base. Although I think anyone could learn from Melinda's trials and tribulations, I would recommend Speak to young-adult and teenage readers as I feel that they would obtain the most benefit from the message of the novel.