I am Outcast.

OVERVIEW:

The kids behind me laugh so loud I know they’re laughing about me. I can’t help myself. I turn around. It’s Rachel, surrounded by a bunch of kids wearing clothes that most definitely did not come from the EastSide Mall. Rachel Bruin, my ex-best friend. She stares at something above my left ear. Words climb up my throat. This was the girl who suffered through Brownies with me, who taught me how to swim, who understood about my parents, who didn’t make fun of my bedroom. If there is anyone in the entire galaxy I am dying to tell what really happened, it’s Rachel. My throat burns.

            Her eyes meet mine for a second. “I hate you,” she mouths silently.

Melinda Sordino’s freshman year is off to a horrible start. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, and now her friends—and even strangers—all hate her. Months pass and things aren’t getting better. She’s a pariah. The lowest of the low. Avoided by everyone. But eventually, she’ll reveal what happened at the party. And when she finally speaks the truth, everything will change.

REVIEW:

It saddens me that such a beautifully written and tragically accurate account of a young girl’s rape can be cast aside as offensive and inappropriate for the classroom. For the brave souls who wish to teach it and the school districts that allow it, parents will write in, arguing that Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak promotes sex and is offensive to the male population. It pains me to think that people could belittle such a novel, one that Anderson came forth years later and confessed it was based on her own experience. It is an emotional and tragic novel but the honesty and richness drive the story home. It is heartbreaking, what Melinda experiences and must work through, but by the end of the novel, you will be cheering her on, applauding her in a standing ovation, and begging for parents to allow this to be taught in the classroom. This is the story of a girl who loses her identity and her voice, who fights the truth that is desperately trying to escape her. Wait for it, and hear her roar.