Melinda Sordino, a student with good grades and great friends, has made some mistakes. At the end of a summer party she calls the cops*, yet when they arrive she doesn’t tell them anything.

    Back at school the next year, her friends won’t speak to her, and people she doesn’t even know hate her as the fink* who destroyed everybody’s party, and her grades start dropping. Her relationship with her parents deteriorates* quickly. She becomes sullen*, and withdrawn. However this picture is not the whole story.

    Her parents know something is wrong but cannot get her to open up.

    As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether.

    Only her art class offers any solace*, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party. She was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him.

    But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication*.

    In Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful novel, a believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical* world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised* teenager while showing the importance of speaking up for oneself.

    The book is available on jd.com.

    (SD-Agencies)