Studies show that more than 250,000 cases of “male-female rape or attempted rapes were recorded by police annually.”  In Haiti, a stranger raped a young girl named Mathilda one night as she attended a party. Her case was completely different than Melinda Sordino’s case because Mathilda decided to speak to the authorities as soon as she was raped. She had the courage to tell her friends as well as the cops what had happened to her that night and she identified the rapist. Three months later, they caught the rapist. His name was Mike Abahad and he became known as the biggest rapist in town.

Video of my book!!! URL

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbhrNgetKEw

 

      Recently I started reading this book called Speak by Lauri Halse Anderson published in 1999.  It is a very interesting book, as it tells us the story of a girl named Melinda Sordino, the main character, who gets raped at a party. Her life is over. After she gets rapped, she called the cops and cannot speak on the phone.  She wants to say something but the words cannot get out of her throat. So the cops come and shut down the party. Eventually, when everyone finds out that she was the one who called the police, they start hating on her.  She then becomes everyone's enemy. No one knows why she called the cops since she has this fear inside of her that cannot let her speak.  Throughout the whole book, she has this fear against herself and the people around her. She stays by herself everyday throughout the whole day since no one wants to be her friend. At the end of the book, she finally finds the courage and strength to finally speak. Everyone found out what had happened at the party and Andy Evans, the rapist, became the person that everyone started to hate. Everyone forgave Melinda for what they did to her and started to give her comfort. She finally felt better since she spoke and did not let the anger stay inside of her.

 

      I started reading this book because my sister recommended it to me. She was talking about this book all day and night. Therefore, I thought it would not kill me to try reading it. This book is the best so far. It has a lot of wonderful morals that can help people in life. Staying silent should never be an option because the anger stays inside of you and builds up. At last, I truly recommend everyone to read this book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.