Speak Review

TITLE Speak
AUTHOR Laurie Halse Anderson
PUBLICATION April 1st 2001 by Puffin
READ June 05 to 06, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

Upon seeing that I have such a dead review month in June for ARC’s I was excited to get to read whatever I wanted to fill up a few of the days. I was quick to jump on reading Speak. This is a novel that I know I read in high school because I was quick to recommend it to my sister who loved it dearly, as I must have to recommend it in the first place. Looking back I remembered absolutely nothing about the novel. It’s weird, sure my memory sucks and I have trouble recalling small details but I usually remember the plot and where the story goes. Speak was a blank for me. I remembered nothing. So re-read I did, and I am left wondering what my high school self saw in this novel.

I’m wondering if I have become desensitized to issue books. I have read so many books that deal with rape and they deal with it much better than this one. Don’t get me wrong I think Anderson captured Melinda’s inner turmoil after the tragic event very well but I just couldn’t connect with her. Could it be the short, clipped sentence structure? Maybe. The fact that the event is simply alluded to for much of the novel? Maybe. The rather innocent approach to the subject matter? Probably. I think it all comes together and I was left wanting...more. Most of the novel is simply Melinda going about her days and completely cutting herself off from everyone. For much of the novel I don’t think I would have even realized what had happened to her if I didn’t know beforehand. There are in depth looks at social history in her classes and spiels about how plants seed and all of those rants just left me scratching my head.

There isn’t really anyone to like in this novel. I probably liked Mr. Freeman (Melinda’s art teacher) the most. He was anti-establishment and I really liked how he let the students go in any direction that they wanted. But Melinda’s parents were absolutely horrible. Upon seeing that her daughter had cut up her arm with a paperclip all her mother says is “I don’t have time for this, Melinda.” That heartless comment absolutely floored me. I mean at that point I knew her parents were pretty shitty because they ignore everything that is going on with their daughter but still. Her grades are going down the toilet fast, she rarely speaks and now she has taken to cutting and you don’t have time for her? I would love to meet that mother in a dark alley at night. The one friend that she makes at school is a witch and all her old friends have just moved on from her so we never really get to know them (aside from their snide comments that proves them witch’s too.)

I didn’t even come to really feel for Melinda. I mean I know what she went through and how incredibly terrible it was but I always felt like an outsider. I didn’t feel like I was sucked into her world and feeling her plight. Her emotions weren’t palpable to me, I longed for much more of a connection through the entire novel. I think this is possibly because of all the weird rants and side things that happened in the story.

Between not liking anyone in the novel and not feeling the emotions that should have been conveyed I was definitely left underwhelmed by this one. For its time it may have been a groundbreaking novel but there have been way better books put out in this field that I would definitely recommend over this one. It makes me sad because I know that at one time I really loved this book but I just didn’t feel it this time around. Hopefully my next re-read goes a lot better than this one.