As Melinda's depression worsens, she begins to skip school, withdrawing from her already distant (and somewhat neglectful) parents and other authority figures, who see her reclusiveness as a cry for attention. However, once Heather realizes that Melinda is an outcast, she abandons her in favor of the 'Marthas,' a group of girls who seem charitable and outgoing but are actually selfish and cruel. Melinda is befriended by Heather, a girl from Ohio who is new to the community. When word spreads that Melinda called the police, she becomes ostracized by her peers and abandoned by her friends. The police arrive and break up the party, and several people are arrested. Melinda immediately calls 9-1-1, but her shock renders her unable to speak and she flees to go home. The summer before her freshman year of high school, Melinda Sordino meets senior Andy Evans at a high school party, who rapes her while she is drunk. A 20th anniversary version of the novel featuring additional content was released in 2019 alongside the author's memoir, Shout. Speak: The Graphic Novel, illustrated by Emily Carroll, was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux February 6, 2018. In 2004, Jessica Sharzer directed the film adaptation, starring Kristen Stewart as Melinda. However, the book has faced censorship for its mature content. Since its publication, the novel has won several awards and has been translated into sixteen languages. The novel was based on Anderson's personal experience of having been raped as a teenager and the trauma she faced. Additionally, Anderson employs intertextual symbolism in the narrative, incorporating fairy tale imagery, such as Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and author Maya Angelou, to further represent Melinda's trauma. Melinda's story is written in a diary format, consisting of a nonlinear plot and jumpy narrative that mimics the trauma she experienced.

Speak is considered a problem novel, or trauma novel. This expression slowly helps Melinda acknowledge what happened, face her problems, and recreate her identity.

Unable to verbalize what happened, Melinda nearly stops speaking altogether, expressing her voice through the art she produces for Mr. Melinda is then ostracized by her peers because she will not say why she called the police. After Melinda is raped at an end of summer party, she calls the police, who break up the party. Speak, published in 1999, is a young adult novel by Laurie Halse Anderson that tells the story of high school freshman Melinda Sordino.

Shout by laurie anderson