Speak

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Published: 1999, Penguin
198 pages

I've been wanting to read Speak for a while now for a couple reasons.  Number one reason: it is often acclaimed as one of the most influential YA books of our time and it has a surprising number of awards under its belt to back that up (including a Printz Honor as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award).   Number two reason: I really enjoyed Prom, also by Laurie Halse Anderson, and I wanted to see how she successfully pulled off two books with such different tones (Prom is light and humorous, and Speak is notoriously heavy).

The narrator is Melinda Sordino, a girl who begins her freshman year of high school as a total outcast.  Through the narrative we learn that she wasn't always a complete outcast, but a traumatic event toward the end of summer turns her into a virtual mute and makes her friends abandon her.  There is very little dialogue, as Melinda very rarely talks, and Anderson did an interesting job of creating a stream of consciousness writing style, so I felt like I was inside Melinda's head as she tried to navigate through the usual freshman year conflicts (where to sit at lunch, being stopped in the halls without a hall pass, cliques, report card woes, etc.) as well as her own obvious internal strife.

Melinda is clearly depressed and dejected, her only real outlet for expression being her art class.  About halfway through the book I started to wonder if I was ever going to find out what happened to her that so dramatically changed her life.  There are little hints throughout the book, and you do finally find out what went so wrong over the summer, though I won't say it here.  I have to say that I wish the revelation was a little more surprising, but I liked that it wasn't over-dramatized.  What comes after the revelation is a bit more surprising, almost to the point of being unbelievable, and that's the only aspect of this book that I didn't really love.

As it turns out, I found the tones of Prom and Speak to be very similar.  Anderson maintains her signature style of short chapters, subtle humor, and sarcastic observations of high school life.  The huge difference between the two books is that the subject matter is much more intense in Speak, so despite the occasional humor, it never breaks into the realm of "lighthearted" or "fun."  I've only read two books by Laurie Halse Anderson, but I would feel fully confident picking up another one of her books any time I was looking for something to read.  It's hard to put her books down, and she has a unique and honest perspective that I really appreciate.