Book Club Post # 4

"Speak"
By: Laurie Halse Anderson

Summary: In this weeks reading I finished reading the book "SPEAK" . I read that Melinda told her ex-friend Rachelle that that she was raped. They were in the school library, they were both almost kicked out for talking too much. Melinda was nervous to tell Rachelle that Andy Evans raped her because Andy was Rachelle's Boyfriend and Melinda wasn't sure if Rachelle was going to believe her. When Melinda told her that she was raped at the party the summer before Rachelle was shocked and Apologized for not realizing earlier what happened to her. Rachelle was asking her a lot of questions about what happened to her after she was raped, she was Concerned about her friend. But when Melinda told her that the person that had raped her was Andy Evans , Rachelle flipped, she didn't believe what Melinda was telling her anymore.
She said that Melinda was a liar , that she was jealous that about her being popular and going to the prom with Andy. After she said all of that she took off to the nurses office saying that she was going throw up. ( p.gs 180-184) The only person that would talk to Melinda that was one of her old friends is Ivy. They are in art class together. Ivy told her how she didn't like Andy Evans either and how great Rachelle thinks she is now that she's popular and dating a senior. She helped Melinda write on the bathroom stall that girls should stay away from Andy and how much of a creep he is.( p.gs 184-186) Melinda and her mother are both surprised when Heather comes over to talk to Melinda. Heather says that the Martha's are really mean to her and that she should have listened to Melinda and just have left the Martha's before. Heather then starts talking about how Melinda should help her decorate a Holiday Inn ballroom for the prom. Melinda doesn't say anything to her. Heather then starts talking about how they should redecorate her room. Melinda finally says no to her, she wont help Heather decorate for the prom and she won't let her do anything to her room. ( p.gs 176-180) The Monday after prom everybody was talking about it. People were saying how lame Heather's Decorations were , Melinda thinks that's why she didn't come to school. The thing that caught Melinda's attention most was that she heard that Rachel had ditched Andy at the prom and went to dance with her exchange student friends. While Melinda was removing her things from her janitors closet Andy Evans walks in and locks them inside. He started saying that it was Melinda's fault that Rachel dumped him at the prom saying that he had raped Melinda. Andy is trying to hurt Melinda again, she struggles but when she tries to scream nothing comes out. Finally when she remembers what he did to her when he raped her , how his hands felt on her she screamed and pushed Andy off of her. He punches her hard on her head and she screams again. Melinda tries to find something to hit him with , she hits him with her fists but she thinks " My fists mean nothing to him , little rabbit paws thumping harmlessly". Melinda picks up a block of wood and hits it against her Maya Angelou poster to brake the mirrors behind it. When it finally brakes she picks up a piece of it and hold it to Andy's neck. She presses hard enough that blood drips out. Again while holding the piece of the broken mirror she tells him no. Then Melinda's old friend Nicole and the lacrosse team are at the door and somebody runs off to get help.(p.gs 190-195)

It's the last day of school and Melinda stayed after school to finish her tree project for Mr.Freeman. Melinda draws new things on her tree and in the end Mr.Freeman gave her a 'A+' for her drawing.Melinda admits that Andy raped her at the party the summer before the start of high school. She said that she was drunk and too young to know what was happening and that it wasn't her fault. Andy hurt her and it wasn't her fault. Now shes not going to let that experience kill her and that she can now grow. ( p.gs 196-198)

Opinion: I really liked reading this book and I'm glad that I choose it as my book club reading book. I think that its good that Melinda finally told somebody what Andy Evans did to her but I'm not too happy about Rachel's reaction. I think that if the people that Melinda thought were her friends were really her friends then they wouldn't have ditched her like they did and ignore her through out the first year of high school. If I had a friend that was going through what Melinda was going through i won't leave her , I wouldn't ignore her like Melinda's friend's did to her. I think that it was stupid to just treat Melinda like they did just because she called the police, They should have asked her why she called the cops and not just do that to her!!!!
The only person that talked to Melinda and didn't ignore her was Ivy, Melinda and Ivy weren't even that good of friends before but even though Ivy didn't do her wrong like the other girls.
I personally didn't like Heather from the start ( I really don't know why I didn't like her) but it was nice of her to be Melinda's friend.Then when she started hanging out with the Marthas' everything changed and in the end Heather said to Melinda that she couldn't be her friend because she was too depressed and that she needed to get help. Now after all that happened Heather comes back and asks Melinda for help.She also said that the Marthas' were being mean to her and bossing her around. I think that Heather deserved what she got because Melinda was being a good friend to her and even when she started hanging out with the Marthas' Melinda was there helping her out.I'm glad that Melinda stood up to her because she was being a real snob. I'm so glad that everybody now knows what Andy did to Melinda! He's a beast just like Melinda said that he is! When I was reading the part where he snuck up on her in the closet my eye's were like this O_O.....because I thought he was going to try and rape her again...which he did try to do! I got mad because he was saying mean things to her and hitting her and she wasn't doing anything.....but then when he started touching her she screamed and told him to stop ...that she didn't want him touching her. But then things got worse when he punched her =[ ..she was fighting back but it was as if she wasn't hitting him at all. I think that Melinda was lucky that there was a mirror behind her poster because if it wasn't there then she wouldn't have broken it and saved herself from Andy. It was the last day of school and Melinda stayed to finish her art project. She worked really hard on it and she was finally able to put her feelings into the tree just like Mr.Freeman said to do. I really feel like she deserved the grade she got on her project.... A+ ^_^.

Prompt: What was the best thing about this week's reading? The best thing about this weeks reading was that I was finally able to finish my book club reading book and I was able to finally see how everybody reacted when they found out why Melinda had really called the police on the night of the party. What surprised you about this week's reading ? What surprised me the most in this weeks reading was that Melinda actually fought back against Andy. I know Melinda is a strong person having kept her secret and having people mistreat her during her first year in High School but I didn't think she would be able to fight of Andy. When he raped her, she couldn't do anything because he was stronger than her. But this time she actually spoke up ,told him to stop and fought back. Did the ending surprise you? The ending didn't really surprise me that much because I was kinda of expecting it to end like it did. Would you recommend this book to anyone? Yes , I would recommend this book to people because "Speak" is a great book and I'm sure that anybody that reads this book will say the same thing. The book is a very interesting book and some people can even relate to it. I really liked this book and I hope that anybody else that reads it will enjoy it as much as I did .

Book club post # 3

Speak
By:Laurie Halse Anderson


Summary: This week in my book club book I read that Melinda has been improving in her classes, she has passed a lot of her tests. During Easter Melinda remembered how much fun it was when her mother hid colored eggs around the house for her , and when her grandparents died they would go to church during Easter. Melinda wished that she and her parents had gone to church for Easter this year because she missed the Easter songs that they sang. During spring break Melinda says that she feels like her house is shrinking and that she feels like Alice in Wonderland. She goes to the mall and she sees her old friend Ivy drawing a picture of children who's faces are sad on one side and painted like a clown on the other. Ivy asked Melinda how her tree was going and Melinda says that she still can't draw the tree right. Ivy tells Melinda that it doesn't matter if the tree she draws at first isn't good enough she can keep on trying until she gets it right. In biology Melinda's class has started to learn about genetics. During class Melinda was thinking about the things that she inherited from her parents. Lately Melinda has been seeing her old friend Rachelle with Andy Evans. Melinda is having a hard time deciding whether to tell Rachelle how Andy really is and what he did to her because they have been getting really close and Melinda doesn't want her old friend to get hurt. Even though Rachelle doesn't talk to Melinda and is probably still mad at her for calling the cops at the summer party , Melinda doesn't want what happened to her to happen to her friend.Melinda writes a left handed note ( so they won't know it was her) to Rachelle advising her and her new friend Ingrid to stay away from Andy Evans.

Opinion: I think that its good that Melinda has Ivy to help her with her tree because at least now she has a 'friend' to show her and tell her what she can do with her tree. I that it's a good thing that Melinda is looking out for her old friend even though Rachelle doesn't know that she's doing it. I think that it was a good idea to write Rachelle the letter because then even if she doesn't pay much attention to it she could still know what kind of person Andy really is.

Prompt: One question that the Deep Thinker asked this week was " Why doesn't Melinda tell Ivy what really happened to her at the party?" We also discussed our favorite characters from the book and why we liked them. My favorite character form the book is Melinda because she is a strong person and a good friend even though almost like all of her friends left her.She went through the first year of high school with no friends and keeping her secret. What surprised me this week was that Melinda actually had the courage to tell somebody about Andy even if it was only by a letter. She's scared of him because she thinks that hes going to hurt her again but she doesn't want anybody else to get hurt by him. The role I played this week was the Historian. I kept track of the imporatn events that happened in the book.