User:Connie Sol/sandbox

Plot
During the welcome back assembly, Melinda notices people are laughing at her behind her back, when she turns around she discovers that one of them is her ex-best friend Rachel Bruin, or as the protagonist describes her “The girl who suffered through Brownies with me,” Later on, the protagonist finds herself repeatedly thinking about the night of the rape, which she can’t get the nerve to tell to anyone, especially when she sees Andy Evans ,or as Melinda calls him IT. And for most of the novel, Melinda denies to herself that she was ever raped, blaming herself and deciding not to tell anyone because “no one wants to hear what you have to say”

But when Rachel and IT start to date, Melinda can’t stop asking herself what to do because she is afraid that Andy might rape Rachel too, “I could say I’d heard bad thing about Andy.(It would only make him more attractive.) I could maybe tell her what happened,” ,so she writes Rachel a letter in which she tells Rachel to be careful.

After Melinda wrote the letter nothing happened, Rachel was still dating Andy so Melinda decides to tell Rachel about the rape, at first Rachel is worried about Melinda, but when the protagonist tells her who the rapist is she gets mad and says “ Liar! I can’t believe you. You’re jealous” ”...and you’re just jealous that I’m popular and I’m going to the prom,”

Reception
Most critics saw Speak as a “funny book” and “ground breaking”. The Horn Magazine said that the novel was “ an uncannily funny book” that “will hold readers from first word to last” Likewise Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy agreed that the novel is a “skillfully written novel, that might ‘Speak’ to teen readers and help them to cope with problems”

Background
The Author of the novel once said that “Speak is about 10% based on the depression I suffered after I was raped, and 90% fiction”. Publishers Weekly explained that “ one night, Laurie Halse Anderson, Awoke to the sound of a Child crying” and after realizing what it was “She picked up a notebook and began writing to make sense of the dream” and “while the first draft of Speak came easily, Anderson revised it twice before submiting the manuscript,”. “‘Speak is the least delierately book I’ve ever done’” said the Laurie Halse to Pulishers Weekly in December 20, 1999. “My father at dinner would talk to us about the roots of words in different languages” “ and that had a huge influence on me” said Laurie Halse Anderson in a recorded interview with Adolescent Literacy.

Style
Speak is written in an “unconventional style including short, vignette-like chapters and life-like visual representations of Melinda’s report cards."

Major Themes
The major theme of Speak is“having a voice”.

Awards and nominations
Speak was a finalist for the “National Book Award, and won a Michael L.Printz Honor Book.”