People Can Change

     As I'm nearing the end of Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak, I definitely notice that the main character, Melinda has changed from the start. I've mentioned in the past that Speak is a book for teenagers who feel out of place, and outcast, but now I see that it's also about teenagers that are willing to come out of that. Teenagers who are willing to actually give an effort to try to fix what's wrong in their lives. Melinda definitely demonstrates this in the way that she was trying to look out for Rachel/Rachelle even after contributing to making her life miserable.

     Melinda meets Rachel/Rachelle in the library and I find it to be very brave of her to do that. She 

was afraid to speak up for herself for so long and he got enough courage to talk to her after months, and about a really sensitive topic. Rachel wasn't understanding at all of what Melinda had to tell her, and she said Melinda was "a liar" and "disgusting" and "jealous" of her. I honestly think she should have just thought about what she said about Andy to her, but Rachel didn't listen because she didnt want to hear anything bad about him. Things like Rachel trusting Andy over Melinda might also be a contributing factor to why Melinda doesn't even want to talk to anyone in the first place. It was totally rude of her to leave and accuse Melinda of being so horrible because of what she said about Andy, when she knew Melinda for so much longer.

     In conclusion, Melind did change very much from the beginning to the nearing end of freshman year. While she might not feel amazing about it, she overcame the fear of having no one to understand what really happened on that night. She might not have convinced Rachel that she was telling the truth, but telling her what happened is a definite start of something. Melinda relates to teenagers this way, because sometimes, just telling someone what your problem is makes it slightly better. Even if they take it the wrong way, or if they don't understand. Sometimes, just talking to something other than stuffed animals and brick walls can make the biggest problem seem almost solvable.