Melinda's Change In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak is a novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson. It is about a high school girl named Melinda Sordino who starts the year with a profound secret on her shoulders. So throughout the novel we see her deal with her academic problems, her social life, and keeping her secret hidden but eventually opening up about it. The theme of the novel is communicating with others and speaking up and out because your voice matters. Anderson uses Melinda to delineate the theme by showing how Melinda’s change hurts her but in the end shows how she grows and heals .
In Speak, Melinda becomes very taciturn. On page 113, it says, “I don’t talk...They want me to speak…Mother:...she won’t say anything! I can’t get a word out of her. She’s mute” That quote shows how