Speak

“I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons. I didn’t go to the mall, the lake, or the pool, or answer the phone. I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don’t have anyone to sit with… I am Outcast.”

The novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson is a very strong and accurate portrayal of the heart ache, anguish, and bullying many teenagers must endure throughout high school. When reading Speak, I really thought that Laurie Halse Anderson nailed exactly how an adolescent feels growing up, and always trying to fit in and not always succeeding. This is the theme of the book and I personally think it is the best theme of a book I have ever read.

Laurie Halse Anderson I have decided should be the queen of symbolism. She sneakily put in so much symbolism, that if you weren’t learning about symbolism in English class while reading Speak, you wouldn’t even know that some of the things in the novel were symbolism. For instance, throughout the novel, Melinda, the main character, is biting her lips, and they are always cracked. This symbolizes the pain and suffering she is going through. Also, Melinda’s last name is Sordino, meaning mute in Italian, and throughout the novel, Melinda says almost nothing. Only speaking when it is absolutely necessary and even then only a couple word sentences. In art class, Melinda chooses he topic tree out of a hat to be the object that is the focus of all her art projects. She is never able to make her tree drawings come alive through the entire novel. This symbolizes her slow death inside of her because she is hiding the details of what happened to her over the summer at a party.

The book was beautifully set up, though not in your traditional way. It was first broken up into four sections. It was split up this way because the novel tells Melinda’s entire ninth grade story and there are four marking periods in the school year. Also, the book had short little chapters with headings that told you what the next few pages were going to be about. I really liked this because I was able to sit down and read when I had time and not be worried about having to go do something else at the spur of the moment when I was in the middle of a chapter. The book also had a lot of dialogue, which I found really fun to read in voices that I thought personified the character speaking.

Speak is an amazing novel that I think everybody should read at one point in their life, but not until they are at least in eighth grade. The book has some mention of topics I feel are not appropriate for any child or teen under eighth grade. Even then, I feel some eighth graders would not be able to handle it. I would also recommend this book for someone who wants a quick read, but still a good read. I also think you need to like or be in the mood for a novel with a mood filled with despair, sadness, fear, and loneliness.
When I was doing my author research, I was amazed to find out that Laurie Halse Anderson had published this book in 1999, and it was her first published novel. This stunned me, and then I found out that in 2000, only a year later, Speak was awarded the Printz Honor Book Award, and then later received many other awards and titles. Speak left me breathless and it will do the same to you, just pick it up and start reading.