Speak






Author: Laurie Halse Anderson


Malinda Sordino is struggling to find herself again through the hatred that her classmates through at her. She called the cops at an end of the school year party because of IT. The one memory that she despises, the one that's eating her alive, is the one that made her call the cops. That event would change her life forever.
Malinda used to have friends, good grades, and an open personality. Ever sense that party she has fallen into a deep depression. Her friends are extremely mad at her, so they pretend that she does not even exist. She needs a friend at this time. She will never speak of that night. It's to painful. She hides in the closet at school and at home because this is where she can be alone, with no disterbences, to feel miserable by herself. When she seeps into her thoughts it sometimes results in her hurting herself.
I love this book, because even though my life isn't like hers, I can still feel her pain and hardships. When she talks and thinks, her feelings are real. The character is so well developed, It didn't seem like an older aged persons interpretation of a teen-aged girl in that situation, it felt like a very accomplished teen-aged author wrote the story, when it was happening to her.
Heather, who was a new girl at school this year, had never previously known Malinda but befriended her because she was someone to hang out with while getting used to the school. She enriches the story because her personality is completely opposite from Malinda's. Heather seems nice, upbeat and smart but she has a different personality then meets the eye, and she turns on Malinda at the worst time possible.
Malindas parents are constantly on the edge with each other, causing home to be an uncomfortable place to be as well. So where is Malindas get away? Inside her own head, which is also the most dangerous place to be.
What's interesting to me as a reader is experiencing Malindas progress through the book while she glides from Not ok, to a deep depression to trying to find the right way out. She does not want to visit that memory, but seeks to find comfort. She needs to release her thoughts to someone, but no one is the right person to talk to. Every day is now a struggle for her and the author does a wonderful job of randomly popping up thoughts about the night when something unintentionally connected happens at school or home that is in someway connected to what happened.
This book may seem to be one big mystery as to what happened at the party, but what makes it so interesting is there are more than one questions to be answered. The book unfolds these mysteries as you read. The event at the party is not the only exciting and extreme part of the book, so the story contains more that just Malindas struggles, thoughts and pressures, but also action when emotions unravel.
Laurie Halse Anderson created this masterpiece storyline that included more than one very well developed character, mystery, curiosity and unbelievable pain that is rarely mentioned but we all know exists.