She spends the school year reliving the party, facing the reality of what happened, and growing into a new, healthier person. Horrified and upset in the aftermath, the first thing Melinda thought to do was to call for help. No one, however, knows Melinda’s biggest secret, the reason she dialed 911 over the summer-a senior named Andy Evans raped her while she was drunk at the party. The remainder of the student body dislikes her for being a snitch. After Melinda calls the police at a party in August, her former friend group ditches her and disintegrates. She begins ninth grade friendless and depressed. I am counting this towards the “Illustrated” square for Cannonball Read 11.Melinda is the protagonist of Speak.

The themes in this book made it in my mind a true classic that I can see people reading for years. The ending really resonates and I can’t believe this book is already 20 years old. Everything feels tight and slightly claustrophobic. The graphic novel shows us Melinda’s room, her secret hiding place at school, and her art classes. The graphics just made me want to go and buy this book in hardcover though. Considering that Melinda finds her voice again via her art and art class in school I thought it was great to see. I think that doing this novel with illustrations was actually brilliant. The character of Heather was self-absorbed and I cracked up at the scene we had in the novel (with Melinda telling Heather no) was done again in this with Heather’s face not processing being told no. Freeman and a classmate of her David Petrakis. The only person that seems to be aware of Melinda is her art teacher, Mr.

Melinda has so much pain in her and I am blown away again by the fact that her parents were this clueless. She is unable to speak and as we follow her through four quarters at Merryweather High School we find out what led Melinda to lose her voice and how in the end she gets it back.

Melinda is starting her freshman year in high school and the novel quickly shows how alone she feels. “Speak: The Graphic Novel” follows the main character, Melinda. Seeing it via another medium made it even more powerful. I already knew the story that Anderson was going to tell. The illustrations add so much to this story and I am glad that I read “Speak” first and then this graphic novel next. The graphic novel does a great job with showing us Melinda in the present day and her memories of her friends and of a party that changed everything via the illustrations by Emily Carroll. I felt for Melinda and wanted to hug her throughout the story and loved how Anderson takes a long road to showing us what happened to Melinda and how her life became unraveled before her freshman year of high school. I loved “Speak” when I read it back in 2015.

Speak novel