Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

It is my first morning of high school.

Melinda Sordino begins her freshmen year of high school an outcast and she drops clues throughout her story as to why. She struggles through this year coming to terms to what happened, healing and learning to speak for herself again at the close of this story. Themes of violence, self esteem, healing, rape and alienation

This story uses the first person narrative effectively to demonstrate the pain Melinda feels. I can't imagine her pain would have been so real had the story been told from the typical omniscient third party. Excellent story.

Anderson, L.H. (1999). Speak. New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux.
ISBN: 0374371520
198 pages