false 4 0 false false Tue Oct 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 21:45:27 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 22:26:13 -0700 2009
"Speak" is the story of Melinda's first year in high school, ninth grade, and it starts inauspiciously. At the end of summer she called the cops from her first high school party. She was caught dialing, wandered off before the police arrived. Her friends dropped her and her name became anathema. When school starts, she is an outcast, alone, hurt and depressed.

Depression can be dull and unbearable, but Melinda views high school with a satirist's eye. Day one at school yields Ten Lies They Tell In High School. ("1. We are here to help you"; "5. Our football team will win the championship this year"; "10. These will be the years you look back on fondly.")

She also wryly and despairingly observes her self-obsessed parents, who make themselves miserable working to pay for a bigger house than the family seems to need. They care enough to fret and yell when Melinda's solid grades slide down to a low-D average, but can't bring themselves to follow through on their threats.

Her two refuges are an abandoned janitor's closet that she converts to a private lair and art class, where an insightful teacher creates another opportunity to escape.

I think the book's ending is a happy one, but it's not clear cut. Melinda's problems aren't all solved, her grades are shot, she's probably bound for summer school, and there's no erasing the nightmare from her past. But she takes a first step in the right direction. For this clever, isolated, depressed young teen, that first step is its own form of victory.]]>