Summary Of Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was a surprisingly explosive novel, and was not something that I was expecting. The novel initially begins with the introduction of a young girl named Melinda, roughly aged thirteen or fourteen, as she had just began high school as a freshman. However we get this introduction of her character not by dialogue as most books do, but simply by Melinda's thoughts and narration. In fact, throughout the novel, rarely does Melinda speak aloud, which I felt added a great ironic effect to the title. Why does she not like to speak? Well, certainly because Melinda has been holding on to a very dark secret since the end of summer right before school began.

Melinda was only thirteen when she was raped under the influence of

Issues such as the need to fit in and be one of the popular kids, the need to date, or why it's okay to submit to someone you like simply because they are older and more mature. We also see the evident rape culture with how Melinda tells no one of the incident because she thinks that no one would believe her. Then as soon as she tells her former best friend Rachel Bruin, who is currently dating Andy, Melinda gets shut down as a disgusting and envious liar. The fact that Andy (who is presumably now an adult male) was constantly tormenting Melinda, as well as preying on other young freshmen girls in her grade, especially sparked another point to me on how often these kind of incidents could occur without anyone realizing it. Andy Evens was basically a sexual predator who took advantage of the naivety of his younger victims who were unable to give their consent or think better of

The only class that she managed to maintain a perfect A in for the whole year of course was art. Melinda was actually not the best artist, but it was simply the only other way that she found she could express her anger, her sadness, her disappointments, and later on, her self-fulfillment and peace within herself. I felt that it was a nice way to show and express just how badly traumatizing events like rape could affect a person. The fact that she kept an A solely in art throughout the whole year, emphasized how much of an effect that class had on her and her situation and basically how important it is to have a class or place that can be one’s emotional outlet every now and