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Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
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"Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him.…
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"Anderson’s classic young-adult novel, which is also rightly popular with adults, tells the story of the mute Melinda Sordino, who has survived an unspeakable trauma that must, finally, be shared."
"I never thought about writing for teenagers until I was 22 and read 'Speak,' by Laurie Halse Anderson, and 'Monster,' by Walter Dean Myers. Both those novels are capital-g Great."
"Speak is a popular novel written from the point-of-view of a young woman who is sexually assaulted in high school. Speak is a powerful prevention tool, which research shows can increase empathy and dispel rape myths among readers. Everything that teenagers consume, including books, shapes their ideas about sex. We know the preponderance of assaults are committed by heterosexual men. Reading Speak will help boys understand what they shouldn’t do. Speak is a book that should be read by every teenager to begin a conversation about how to approach sex without doing harm. Sexual citizenship has two important components. First, people have the right to choose their sexual experiences. And second, they need to understand that other people have that same right—that one person’s sexual autonomy cannot trump another person’s sexual citizenship. We are agnostic about what young people should be doing sexually. But we’re very moralistic about sexual citizenship."