Speak

Melinda Sordino has become an outcast in her high school. The other students hate her because she called the police during a party she was at, causing some other students a variety of problems.

She has lost all of her friends from the past; her grades are going straight down; she has found an old janitor's closet and uses that as a refuge and the only class she is doing well in is Art.

Worst of all, she fells she can't tell anyone the truth about what happened at that party, that she got drunk and was raped by one of the school's athletes.

This is a very well done book showing what can happen to a girl after such a terrible event and how some women who are raped end up not even reporting it or trying to get the criminal dealt with by the police.

The terrible psychological damage the crime can do to a woman is shown along with the fact that it is possible to come to terms with what happened, stand up for oneself and fight back against the excuse-for-a-human that did this to her. It's a story of suffering and eventually hope and strength, definitely worth reading.

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