Final thoughts on Speak

Well, that's the good thing about YA. Not a lot of exposition, you can just whip right through it.

I ended up quite liking this book but if I try to explain why, I sound like an Afterschool Special and then Helen Hunt will come crashing through a 2 story window hopped up on PCP that her boyfriend made in the school lab (what the hell am I talking about? Here.)

So, the main character gets raped at a Senior Party over the summer and she can't get over it (the fact that she has less than stellar friends and parents didn't help.) As you can guess from the title, she clams up the moment she calls the police shortly after the attack (which causes them to bust the party, some of her schoolmates to get arrested and thus making Melinda the most unpopular incoming Freshman) and spends the rest of the book fighting for reasons not to talk. I think it's important that the novel shows her recovering. I didn't even mind the big showdown with her rapist at the end. Since this is YA literature and literature has the power to change minds and especially young minds, it was important to see Melinda finding her voice and her rapist experiencing consequences even if they aren't elaborated upon.

A few more scenes I liked:

Melinda takes a sick day at home and imagines this daytime TV exchange:

Was I raped?

Oprah: "Let's explore that. You said no. He covered your mouth with his hand....Honey, you were raped. What a horrible, horrible thing for you to live through. Didn't you ever think of telling anyone? You can't keep this inside forever. Can someone get her a tissue?"

Sally: "I want this boy held responsible...I want you to listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. It was not your fault. This boy was an animal."

Jerry: "Was it love? No. Was it lust? No. Was it tenderness, sweetness, the First Time they talk about in magazines? No, no, no, no! Speak up Meatilda, ah, Melinda, I can't hear you!"

And this conversation with David Petrakis who is consoling her after Mr. Neck gives her a D on her extra credit report on the Suffragettes because she engineered it so she wouldn't have to deliver it orally:

David: "But you got it wrong. The suffragettes were all about speaking up, screaming for their rights. You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys win. If the suffragettes did that, women wouldn't be able to vote yet."