Book discussion notes on Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Well, it was unanimous--Everybody loved the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.
We all thought that Melinda's parents should have realized that something was wrong with their daughter. Both librarians and students felt that Melinda should have had a relationship with her mother that would have allowed her to tell her mother what happened. One person said that she thought they had had a good relationship in the past as evidenced by the surroundings and "girly" decor of Melinda's room. One of the librarians thought that perhaps Melinda didn't feel she could tell her mother what happened because Melinda had allowed herself to get into a bad situation and was blaming herself for what happened and was embarassed or felt she had been really stupid. A number of people found it unbelievable that Melinda's parents didn't realize she had a problem, and several of our student book club members thought that a teacher should have picked up on the fact that Melinda had a problem. A couple of our librarian members pointed out that because she was a freshman, they may have just thought she was shy, and since she wasn't a behavior problem didn't bother to try to figure her out.
We all liked her art teacher, and realized that she grew through expressing herself through her art. As her inner self improved so did her artwork, and it was somewhat difficult to tell which was helping which at times.
We felt that her art class and the closet she fixed up for herself were safe havens. Nobody liked the fact that Melinda's best friend had dumped her over the summer without even asking for Melinda's side of the story.
We also really disliked the new girl in school who, when she got in with the popular crowd, pretty much dropped Melinda like a hot potato.
It was noted by many of the book club members that everybody in high school is just trying to be popular or fit in somewhere.
Everybody pretty well figured out early on in the book that Melinda had suffered some sort of trauma, but didn't know exactly what until a little later in the book.
A couple of our book club members wished that they could have spoken for Melinda.
We all thought there was also a lot of humor in the book that helped relieve the tension of the story and that the book would have been too dark without it.
Overall, a very satisfying read.
If anybody has anything else they wanted to say about the book, please add comments. The more, the merrier.