Welcome to Merryweather High.That is the first thing I saw when I opened the book. Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak captivates me in ways that are beyond belief. I think the book it'self "speaks" the main idea of what I got out of it.
The summer is suppose to be the time for fun and carefree behavior but what happens when somebody takes that carefree behavior over the line. Melinda Sordino went to a party one person by the end of the night was someone completely different. So when school starts and everybody hates her what is she suppose to do? She cant tell her friend because she doesn't have those any more. She won't tell her parents because they would just pass it off as if it was her own fault. Melinda is scared, scarred, and lonely. Then she meets the new girl and try's to make it work. She does all the things you are suppose to do with friends; going over to each others house, eating together at lunch, talking to each other. Heather is more about the future than the now and she is trying to join all the clubs and be friends with all the right people. Soon she is leaving Melinda behind because she has a "reputation". Mr. Freeman is the art teacher and he believes that everybody has a story to tell through art. When Melinda draws for trees he won't let her change it. As she try's to keep her secret her tree's stay dead, not going any where. As I was reading this book my mind kept going back to a song I heard before. Like the book there is a girl who was heart by a guy and he broke her. The song goes on to tell of the other girls he hurt the same way as her. In the song she tell's of him "collecting his jar of hearts" and in the book when Ivy show Melinda the list she added IT's name to it goes on to say thing about the way he was a bad person and should be stayed away from and showed that he has hurt others in the past. Laurie's style of writing affected me in the sense that I wanted to know who did what to her and make them pay. What could IT have done to her to make her call the cops that night?Speak is a great book for people who like to see good thing happen to people who deserve it and for the right thing to happen to the people who cause bad thing on the people that are to weak to defend themselves at the time.
