Speak: Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

The title of the book is Speak.
Speak, was written and published in 1999. The novel was written by Laurie Halse Anderson.
Laurie Halse Anderson was born and is from Potsdam New York.
Melinda is the main character of Speak. She’s also the narrator, so everything we learn about others is filtered through her. She’s only fourteen years old and she’s dealing with one of the worst things that can happen to a person: rape. Melinda is a very closed off person mainly mute for the story. She refuses to talk to anyone, not even her parents due to the incident that happened to her. Heather is from Ohio and is the new kid at school. She’s extremely driven that she wants to join a club every day of the week. She wants to be a part of her new community,

We know that all her ex-friends and a bunch of other kids are really mad at her. She also hints that something awful has happened to her, and she wants to tell somebody about it but can't. We find out that people are mad at Melinda because they hold her responsible for an end-of-summer party being busted. Melinda is physically and verbally assaulted at school on a semi-regular basis, prompting her to keep to herself more and more. We also learn that a bad thing happened to her at the party, and that's why she called the police. She is deeply conflicted about whether to talk about it or not.The rising action is we find out that people are mad at Melinda because they think she called the police to end a summer party. Melinda is physically and verbally assaulted at school by people that were at the party. That influences her to keep to herself. We also learn that a bad thing happened to her at the party, and that's why she called the police. She is deeply conflicted about whether to talk about what happened at the party that caused her to call the police.The climax is when Melinda is finally motivated to speak and warns Rachel about Andy. Rachel doesn't seem to believe her at first, but Melinda's anonymous warning probably prepares Rachel to ward off Andy at the prom, which she does. The falling action is we don't learn what happens to Andy, but the secret is out, and he's hopefully being dealt with.

Melinda has simply refused to say anything. To understand this, one needs to understand why Melinda chose to silence her own voice. At a party, over the summer prior to Melinda's freshman year in high school, Melinda was raped. Given that she, in a heightened state of fear, called the police. The party was broken up, everyone knows who called the police, and Melinda was alienated because of it. Because of the way she is treated by her "friends," Melinda begins to pull away from everything in life. Not only does she lose her friends, her family life is less than supportive. Therefore, the title of the novel is of the utmost importance based upon the fact that readers want Melinda to do one thing,