num_pages: 5
description: From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops — a major infraction in high-school society — so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute. But it's not so comfortable in her head, either — there's something banging around in there that she doesn't want to think about. Try as she might to avoid it, it won't go away, until there is a painful confrontation. Once that happens, she can't be silent — she must speak the truth. In this powerful audiobook, an utterly believable, bitterly ironic heroine speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while learning that, although it's hard to speak up for yourself, keeping your mouth shut is worse.
language: English
title: Speak
titlecomplete: Speak
characters: David Petrakis, Andy Evans, Nichole Smythe Burnell, Mr. Freeman, Ivy Hall, Melinda Sordino, Heather, Rachel Bruin
genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Mental Health, Teen, School, Young Adult, Banned Books, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, High School
ratings_count: 576239
places: Syracuse, New York
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: SCBWI Golden Kite Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Edgar Award
category: Best Young Adult, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Michael L. Printz Award, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: South Carolina Book Award
category: Young Adult Book Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Rhode Island Teen Book Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Vermont Golden Dome Book Award, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Evergreen Teen Book Award, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: California Young Readers Medal
category: Young Adult, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Lincoln Award, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Young People's Literature, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Oklahoma Sequoyah Award
category: YA, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Margaret A. Edwards Award
publisher: Listening Library (Audio)