A nightmare. Melinda Sordino starts her freshman year but it’s more like a walking nightmare. It’s worse than not having friends, she is absolutely alone. Melinda has pissed off every student in her new high school, but it wasn’t her fault. Slowly throughout the book we piece together the events that took place on that horrendous night that turned her entire life upside down.
I had been seeing this book pop up in the blogosphere and the cover absolutely intrigued me. When I saw Speak on my friend Kathy’s (The Literary Amnesiac) bookshelf I had to borrow it.
The very first time I picked it up, I knew that it was going to be one of the saddest books I have ever read. Although the book was very sad and it was a struggle to watch this poor helpless girl fall deeper into the trap of depression, it was also empowering. It was fascinating to watch this girl healing from such a horrible action of hate and selfishness.
The entertainment world wants us to view high school on a level more like Glee or Vampire Diaries, where the main characters biggest fear is not getting into the college they want or falling for a hot vampire and struggling with the impacts of those decisions. This book lets us into a real world situation that is a lot more realistic than slushies in the face or being hunted by a half breed vampire/werewolf. The world of safe high schools is over (or never existed), where bullies are real and the fact that every high schooler is dealing with or knows someone who is dealing with cutting, thoughts of suicide and disorders that are detrimental to their overall wellbeing. This book lets the audience into the head of a fictional but very real 9th grader who is having a rough time for trying to get help. If adults would listen more maybe these children that are experiencing real pain, would speak up more.
I loved how Anderson wrote this book. Written in first person, we are enclosed in Melinda’s thoughts. She is trapped and therefore we are trapped. No one offers help, they just force solutions on why Melinda changed so drastically in such a short time. There were very few spoken words, the book was mostly filtered through Melinda’s thoughts. When Melinda did speak, the reader was ready to listen. There was also a lot of symbolism in this book. I believe that the author uses everything around Melinda to symbolize how miserable and alone she was. From the book the class is reading in English (The Scarlet Letter), to the lack of school mascot, to the art assignment of drawing a tree. It was fascinating watching this story unfold in so many different facets. I’m not sure how Anderson can write like she is a freshman in high school, but with all of my experiences of being a youth pastor’s wife, she did a fantastic job of getting into Melinda’s head.
I don’t think that this book is for everyone. Although I do believe that all middle school and high school teachers should read this. It was not a fun read, but it was inspiring. If you have read it, you’ll have to let me know how you feel afterwards. Keep reading my friends!
