Speak, published in 1999, is a young adult novel by Laurie Halse Anderson that tells the story of high school freshman Melinda Sordino.

[1][2] Unable to verbalize what happened, Melinda nearly stops speaking altogether,[1] expressing her voice through the art she produces for Mr. Freeman's class.

[1] Melinda's story is written in a diary format, consisting of a nonlinear plot and jumpy narrative that mimics the trauma she experienced.

[1][2] Additionally, Anderson employs intertextual symbolism in the narrative, incorporating fairy tale imagery, such as Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and author Maya Angelou, to further represent Melinda's trauma.

However, once Heather realizes that Melinda is an outcast, she abandons her in favor of the "Marthas," a group of girls who seem charitable and outgoing but are actually selfish and cruel.

As Melinda's depression worsens, she begins to skip school, withdrawing from her already distant (and somewhat neglectful) parents and other authority figures, who see her reclusiveness as a cry for attention.

[1][2] The rape troubles Melinda as she struggles with wanting to repress the memory of the event, while simultaneously desiring to speak about it.

[2] Knox College English Professor Barbara Tanner-Smith calls Speak a trauma narrative, as the novel allows readers to identify with Melinda's struggles.

[1] Hofstra University Writing Studies and Rhetoric Professor Lisa DeTora considers Speak a coming-of-age novel, citing Melinda's "quest to claim a voice and identity".

[2] McGee considers Speak a confessional narrative; adults in Melinda's life constantly demand a "confession" from her.

[2] Similarly, author and Florida State University Professor Don Latham sees Speak as a "coming-out" story.

[1][4] Like other trauma survivors, Melinda's desire to both deny and proclaim what happened produces symptoms that both attract and deflect attention.

Written in the voice of Melinda Sordino, it features lists, subheadings, spaces between paragraphs and script-like dialogue.

[2] According to Chris McGee and DeTora, Anderson's writing style allows the reader to see how Melinda struggles with "producing the standard, cohesive narrative" expected in a teen novel.

[1] She sees Merryweather High School as the "ideal fairy tale domain", featuring easily categorized characters—a witchy mother, a shape-shifting best friend, a beastly rapist.

[1] The walls of Melinda's closet are covered in her tree sketches, creating a metaphorical forest in which she hides from reliving her trauma.

[1] In the story, Melinda's English class studies Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which features similar fairy tale imagery.

[1] Similarly, Anderson connects Melinda's trauma to that of Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

[18] Barbara Tannert-Smith, author of "Like Falling Up Into a Storybook: Trauma and Intertextual Repetition in Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.

[1] Publishers Weekly says, Speak's "overall gritty realism and Melinda's hard-won metamorphosis will leave readers touched and inspired".

[19] Ned Vizzini, for The New York Times, calls it "different", "a grittily realistic portrait of sexual violence in high school.

"[30] In September 2010, Wesley Scroggins, a professor at Missouri State University, wrote an article, "Filthy books demeaning to Republic education", in which he claimed that Speak, along with Slaughterhouse-Five and Twenty Boy Summer, should be banned for "exposing children to immorality".

[31] Scroggins claimed that Speak should be "classified as soft pornography" and, therefore, removed from high school English curriculum.

[35] The novel gives students the opportunity to talk about several teen issues, including: school cliques, sex, and parental relationships.

[35] Of teaching Speak in the classroom Jackett says, "We have the opportunity as English teachers to have an enormously positive impact on students' lives.