How "Speak" Is Good Literature

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a fantastic book. It expresses what a lot of teenagers in high school and maybe middle school are feeling or going through.   The title of the book is speak and it is ironic because the protagonist, Melinda Sordinio chooses not to speak. Yet by describing her surroundings and explaining how she feels little by little, you start to realize why she doesn’t speak. She is traumatized by an event that occurred before she entered high school. That is why I enjoyed reading it so much. Good literature is timeless and placeless. It allows me to understand myself and others a lot better. Also, it shows character development, the effect it has on the reader, and how long it stays relevant in a readers mind. So if that is what good literature is then Speak definitely has is!
Many girls in the world are raped and it continues and there are some still trying to deal with such a horrible thing today. Girls in ten or twenty years who read this book would still be able to relate to it. The feeling of being alone, your rapists raping you again, or the fear of telling someone because they might not believe you are feelings and emotions that people can go through. Although Speak took place in America, it explains what a lot of rape victims are going through in other countries too. So this book is indeed timeless and placeless.
Speak also did help me understand how rape victims and outcasts most feel. Melinda doesn’t communicate with her parents well QUOTE. So she cannot tell them of what happened to her at Kyle Rodger’s party. Over time Melinda does open up to a few people. Like her art teacher Mr. Freeman QUOTE. Also her lab partner David Petrakis QUOTE.   Later on in the story Melinda does in fact tell someone, Rachel, she was raped and who raped her.   QUOTE. Though, Rachel thinks she is lying and is jealous because Melinda’s rapist is her boyfriend Andy Evans. Yet, Melinda finds the courage to tell her story again, about how she was raped QUOTE....