Speak (MS)

Maddie S

The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson takes us through a year in the eyes of a teenage girl named Melinda. Melinda starts high school with no friends, because of an incident at a party over the summer before her freshman year. All of her friends from middle school turn on her leaving her all alone and Melinda becomes very depressed. She sits at home all the time thinking about the incident, playing the nightmare over and over in her mind. She starts to fail all her classes except one, Art class. The only joy that Melinda can find for a while is in her art. Later in the book things start to brighten up and make Melinda a little more happy such as when she makes a couple friends some new and some old. Throughout this book Melinda faces many difficulties that many students at Upper Arlington High School can relate to.

One thing I would change about the book is that I would have wanted the author to add a little bit more to the ending. They tell us how things turn out but only in a few pages and I wanted to see how people treated her after knowing what she had been through.

Overall I really liked this book because there was many things that I could relate to. Melinda and I are both freshman in highschool so we experience some of the same struggles. I also enjoyed this book because I found myself never wanting to put it down. In the book you can tell Melinda has had something happen to her that really impacted her but they don’t tell you what until you’re half way through the book. This made me want to keep reading until I could understand why Melinda was acting this way.

If you are looking for a good relatable book that is an easy and entertaining read then I think that Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is the book for you.