Tolog Review: Speak

Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
reviewed by Sofia Gutierrez

Doesn’t it seem like a nightmare to lose all of your friends? Living in a world of loneliness where everyone is against you, you can’t let your voice be heard, and you just can’t speak.
Laurie Halse Anderson introduces this theme of a silenced individual in her novel, Speak. This nightmare of loneliness is a reality for freshman Melinda Sordino. Everyone including her closest friends are against her because she is the one who called the police at a huge party over the summer. Anderson takes us on a journey to find out the real reason Melinda called the police at the party.
Anderson captures the life of Melinda and steps into her world of loneliness that starts off as just sadness. Her loneliness evolves into skipping class, grades dropping, and eventually not speaking at all. Living with the pain of what happened that night, we look through the eyes of Melinda and her thoughts as we continue reading the novel.

Anyone can relate to this story in many ways. We all have a “Mr. Neck”, a character in Speak, in our lives. Someone who enjoys seeing us fail and fall down. We also have that person in our lives who is like Rachelle who thinks he or she is better than everyone else and will not listen to the truth.

Anderson does an excellent job of introducing the theme of being silenced. For those who have had a traumatic experience in their life, they know what it is liked to be silenced and feel as if they have no place to go. Anderson reaches out to those who have no voice and ultimately gives them the hope and closure that they need to hear to know everything will get better. 

I would recommend this book to everyone but I mostly recommend this book to high school students or the people who feel as if they lost their voice due to struggles in life. This powerful story will change your view about how we should treat people. With the progression of events in the story, it is impossible not to turn the next page!