Melinda sordino begins her freshman year at merryweather high school in syracuse, new york, with a heavy secret weighing on her. Over the summer, she and her friends went to a party and melinda ended up calling the police, causing her friends and everyone at the party to socially reject her. Melinda's only friend is heather, a new student, who tries to get melinda involved in her schemes to gain popularity. Melinda, however, is not interested in gaining popularity and spends much of her time in an abandoned janitor's closet at school. She has stolen some late passes, so she uses the closet as a hideout to avoid teachers she dislikes and painful interactions with her former friends.

Her only solace at school is art class, where she is working on a year long project to create various interpretations of a tree. In the school hallways, she occasionally sees it, a name she has given to senior andy evans, and she slowly begins to face what he did to her. Whenever he sees her, he antagonizes her in ways that make her relive her initial experience with him.

Her parents and guidance counselor try to get her to open up about her poor academic performance, but melinda refuses to speak to them. However, over many months of painful silence and self harm in the form of lip and nail biting, melinda finally admits to herself that andy evans raped her at the party last summer. After facing the fact that she was raped, melinda begins to recover from the trauma of the event. She is worried about andy evans' intentions for her former best friend, rachel, and finally tells rachel what happened to her. While rachel does not believe melinda, melinda begins to feel free after speaking up. She takes up new hobbies, like yard work, and gains confidence in her attempts at creating a vibrant tree for art class. She no longer relies on heather's false friendship and begins to reconnect with her former friend ivy.

As the school year comes to an end, melinda is forced to confront andy once again when he corners her in her janitor's closet. She defends herself and gains the respect of the school as many other girls have also suffered andy's attacks silently. She ends the year by finishing her tree and sharing what has happened to her with her art teacher, mr. laurie halse anderson speak is book about a young girl who loses her voice after being raped and slowly gains it back over time. laurie halse anderson uses an internal voice throughout the book to show the havoc that is attacking melinda’s mind.

Technology 2012 improving energy use in sawmills from drying kilns to national impact jan olof anderson licentiate thesis improving energy use in sawmills: from drying kilns to national impact jan olof anderson division of energy science department of engineering sciences amp mathematics luleå university. It is based on a true story and is based on what people like me teens go through. I feel that the story emphasizes on both the plot and the character because it's about what the character goes through and her struggling with this plot. Melinda lives in the rich side of town because her dad is a lawyer and her mom is a sales person and they have a lot of money to live on this side of town. It is my first day of high school, i have seven new notebooks, a skirt i hate, and a stomach ache. вќ told in first person, are the first lines that melinda says in the beginning of speak. You may not see her as a hero, but in my opinion she was because she showed great perseverance.

Melinda has a deep secret that she keeps confided with in her because she's embarrassed and feels that it is her fault that everything happened, even though it wasn't. Although she lost all her friends and she was an outcast вќ she still kept her strength. He would scare her and make her not want to tell anybody and would threaten her if she were to ever tell. Melinda was once an outgoing happy girl who got good grades and was very popular.

Com 150 Final Project Expository Essay

Her best friend rachel was just like her, she had looks and she had a personality that everyone loved. August before her freshman year, melinda and her closest friends attend a party with seniors and beer. Andy begins dancing with and kissing melinda, and melinda is taken aback but too drunk to say anything. In her confusion afterward, melinda dials 911 and the police arrive at the party, but melinda finds herself unable to tell anyone what happened. When the entire school discovers that melinda broke up the party and got some students arrested, her friends stop speaking to her. She arrives friendless on her first day of ninth grade and receives angry glares from strangers. However, heather is eager to be a part of the social scene and she soon joins a clan known as the marthas.

Heather realizes that having melinda as a friend hurts her social reputation, and she tells melinda that they can no longer spend time together. Her parents and teachers notice, but believe that it is just an immature attention seeking ploy. She begins to admit to herself what happened and gradually stops running away from the memory of it.

Horrified by this, melinda knows that she must warn rachel about the danger of spending time with andy. Melinda opens up to rachel about the rape by exchanging notes with her in the library. Rachel is receptive until melinda names andy the perpetrator, at which point she angrily leaves the room. The following week, melinda decides she is ready to move out of her janitor 39 s closet. Freeman 39 s room on the final day of school finishing up her yearlong art project. The melinda we see at the end of the novel is not the same melinda that arrived friendless on her first day of ninth grade. Cite this page examine the role that female sexuality plays in melinda 39 s world.