Review of SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson

From the inside cover:
Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know hate her from a distance. It's no use explaining to her parents; they've never known what her life is really like. The safest place for Melinda to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she admitted it and let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have no choice. Melinda would have to speak the truth.

My Review:
This book is written in a diary like format without the dates. Each chapter has a different theme. Ms. Anderson's novel was also one of the saddest novels I read this year. You get to see inside the head of the Melinda. You know how she feels and how she copes with what has happened to her to cause all the chain of events at that one party that summer. Before that she was preparing for high school like every teenager but one even made her selectively mute. This book was hard to read yet you could not put it down. Her feelings were real and they were raw. It is also a good introduction to this author. I look forward to reading to read her current bestseller Wintergirls.

Overall I give this book a 5/5. I loved it.