Sunday, August 16, 2009

Book Review: Speak

SPEAK was an incredible book. I read it in one day. It had been recomended to me many times, and I'm so glad I read it. It was sad and beautiful and in the end, empowering. This novel was written by Laurie Halse Anderson for young adults when I was still a young adult. It just took me ten years to discover it.

About five years ago, it was turned into a Lifetime movie. The main character, Melinda Sordino, was played by Kristen Stewart, who I think is an amazing actress. It just so happened to come on TV the day after I read the book. They did an amazing job transfering it to video. So much of this book is internal, as Melinda was traumatized and had basically lost her voice. She couldn't speak about what happened to her. I think this book would speak, not just to teens, but to everyone.


Despite this book being about such an ugly topic, it really was beautifully written. Did you know that every two minutes a woman is raped in the US or that 1 in 6 women will be raped? Did you know that 73% of rape victims know their attacker and 60% go unreported? Those are scary statistics. The most wonderful thing about this book is that there are so many girls and women who can relate to what Melinda goes through. But not only that, it could help women speak out, to go to police and report the attack. Melinda is a wonderful character, and she can help many young women. A huge thanks to Laurie Halse Anderson for writing this amazing novel. I can't wait to read more of her work.


Synopsis:

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that’s not safe. Because there’s something she’s trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I watched this movie yesterday in Lifetime and loved it, but i kept thinking 'i gotta find out if this was based on a book cause that would be an amazing read!'.

So today i get on twitter and got so freaked when you started talking about SPEAK but i thought this must be a sign or something cause i just watched the movie LAST NIGHT!

This is a great topic to also create awareness and help someone that might relate. DO NOT BAN THIS BOOK!!

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