Speak

Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson

The Details-

Published: October 22nd 1999

Publisher: Puffin

Source: The Library

Genre: YA realistic fiction

Links: Goodreads

Summary: 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. (via Goodreads)

Earlier this month I read Wintergirls and was amazed by how raw and beautiful the writing was. I started Speak expecting it to be the same type of writing. Sadly I did not find the writing in Speak to be as beautiful or raw. The beginning of Speak opens on Melinda’s first day of school. Her old friends are glaring at her in the hall and she feels out of place in all of her classes except one, art. Over the course of the book we see snippets of her other classes, English, math, science, etc. However in her art class we see how she interacts, behaves, and her teacher; Mr. Freeman. Mr. Freeman was a very interesting character but, like most of the characters in the book, felt flat and didn’t have much depth. He had lots of different elements, his giant canvas painting, his not teaching that much teaching style, his disagreements with the school board, etc. He was also a great friend to Melinda but he didn’t have any depth.

In Wintergirls we learned at the begging what Lia’s battle was. It was very unclear for the majority of the book. I was very confused and actually ended up reading through the acknowledgements to figure it out waaaayyyyyy before it was revealed in the book. The writing still was very beautiful and I found some quotes I liked, but it wasn’t at raw or artistic as Wintergirls.

Verdict:

 Three stars

Lots of people love this book but compared to Laurie Halse Anderson’s newer book this one was not nearly as good.