In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, there are a lot of characters. The main character is a girl named Melinda. Melinda is a sophomore who has lost her way with her own social life. She has little to no friends anymore. Also her grades are dropping quickly. This brings us to her parents; I don’t yet know their names because they were referred to as Mom and Dad in the book. Melinda's mom wants her daughter to do well in school. She also does not like when her husband buts-in to her yelling at Melinda. Melinda’s dad also wants Melinda to do her very best in school. He is also very good at Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions.

 Melinda has teachers just like any other school student. Mr. Stetman is her algebra teacher. Mr. Stetman is described as a normal guy who is just in love with algebra. Also Mr. Neck is a history teacher who is really big on school pride. Melinda seems to enjoy his class. David Petrakis is just one of those students who never gets in trouble. He is extremely smart and kids are jealous of him. Heather is one of Melinda's only friends; she has her whole life planned out in high school. She wants to grow up to be a nurse.

Some themes that are beginning to surface in the book Speak are depression and memory. I feel that the depression is going to end up being the main theme of the book. Just by now I have read about half of the book and Melinda keeps to herself and sits in back of her class rooms. She seems like she just wants to lock herself away and cry. Memory is also a very strong theme in the book Speak. Melinda is the main character who just cannot get over the memory of one night in her life. A memory of a few hours that will haunt her for the rest of her life. The memory of the time she was raped. Which brings me to the structure of the book. The structure is all about tone and how Melinda does not want to do anything.  

I have started reading the book Speak. So far I am really enjoying the book, most of all the tragic story line. It is about a student who goes to Merry Weather high school. She was every girl's dream: she had friends, she had the looks, and most of all she was popular. Well at least she used to be all of those things. Her name is Melinda Sordino, the girl who lost everything. She lost all of her friends and people just look down on her in school. Melinda also lost her popularity, but still had her looks. The reason why all this happened was because she made one phone call, one decision that changed her social life upside down.



The summer before school her sophomore year she was at a party. A party with people who are underage were drinking alcohol. Somewhere during the party Melinda was raped. She called the cops and when the cops got there, they saw under age kids drinking. I do not know yet if people were arrested, but I predict that people did and the cops did not know about the rape? I think maybe someone ripped the phone out of Melinda's hand before she could report it. But what I do not understand is the why? Why did Melinda not tell anyone about the rape? Maybe she was scared or embarrassed? I predict that sometime during her sophomore year she will tell someone what really happened that night. I feel like this book is similar to the Perks of Being a Wallflower. They are both about teen girls in high school and their stories. I think that Speak has a better story line, but they are still similar books.