Summary: Melinda Sordino is a
socially rejected freshman at Merryweather High School due to her calling the
police at a high school party in the summer prior to school starting. Little do
the other students know, she is carrying around a terrible secret that is
weighing heavy on her heart, emotions, and friendships. She gains an unlikely
friend in Heather, a new student at school, who is trying to gain popularity,
unlike Melinda. Melinda spends most of her time in an abandoned janitors closet
and finding solace in art class, she finally starts to deal with the fact that a
senior, Andy Evans, at the very party where she called the cops, raped her. As
Andy makes appearances in her life and starts to come close to one of her
former friends, Melinda begins to gain the confidence to come out about her
rape. As she comes out about her incident, other girls start to speak up about
their unfortunate experiences with Andy as well. When Andy confronts Melinda in
her, what she thought was her very safe janitor’s closet; she takes a stand and
fights back. This gains the respect of many of her peers. The book ends by her
returning to her place of solace, art class, and confiding in her art teacher
about her traumatic experiences.
Commentary: In Speak, Melina’s experience and struggles are slowly revealed
throughout the story. The reader knows at the beginning that she is an outcast
and that something has happened to her but they do not know what. This style of
writing keeps the reader interested and curious about what experience is truly
haunting her to change so drastically. When the truth about her rape is revealed
to the reader, most of the other characters do not know about her experience.
The reader is able to live through her struggles and just how difficult it is
to come out about the sexual abuse to others. Because of this experience,
Melinda’s friendships are fractured. She is thought of as a social outcast by
the main population of the school so what she thought were her “true” friends
followed suit. Even if rape is not the relating factor to the reader, many
readers can relate to how she deals with fractured friendships and rejection. Finally, This book does not finish in a
normal happy fairy tale ending. In the end, Melinda is just discovering her strength
to recoginize what happened to her was out of her control. After the book ends,
she will still have much healing and hardships ahead much like real life.
Connection: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen, The
Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and Some Boys by Patty Blount.
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