The High School in Speak

The scary part of this book is not just that Melinda is suffering or the kids in it are horrible.  This isn't a fictional story, this is true to life and that is the horror of it.  High school is a true thing, a real place that you have to attend to have a good future.  Its like you are trapped and Melinda feels like that, too.  It isn't like this fairytale world that no matter what you do everything is fine. This inspiring story is all reality.  The events and everything could happen.  It could happen to you and honestly that is frightening.  There isn’t the comfort of this being a fantasy world and it's a made up thing.  People act this way, do these things and this has happened in the past.  It will keep happening in the far future as well.  Reality is a chilling, scary thing and Melinda is living right in the middle of it.

Melinda is standing in the lunch room awkwardly waiting to see if anyone will accept her.  She finds one person who even later on fails to be there for her.  People are unreliable.  They can be cruel and not accepting of others for their own twisted reasons.  Some people just don't fit their standards in high school and don't even have a friend to count on because no one wants anything to do with them.  The setting is the perfect place for this story and the characters because either you are accepted in high school or you are just not.  She isn’t and people aren't very reliable to be your sturdy foundation to make mistakes with.  Whatever she does no one even wants to look at her.  As I said the setting is the only place that would work for this and embraces the story well.  High school is not always as grim but the author made it a very dark thing.  High school can sometimes be the start of a young adult life but the author made the characters misunderstanding and had the high school a dark, dead place.  If the plot and characters had a different past then maybe Melinda would have had a place to sit at lunch and friends.

Reality is the shadowy thing we live in and it has always just been.  Melinda goes to a high school that fits that very description.  The high school was made into a scary thing to fit the book.  She is a lonely girl in a dark high school with misunderstood people that don't want to be kind or reaching out.  Her story and the characters would be very different if the setting was different. It is essential and a main piece of the book. Change one thing and you have a completely different story.  Make it happy and nothing would have happened the way it did.  The setting was chosen because of the reality clinging to it making it a real thing with realistic characters with normal human actions and emotions.  High school is as real as it could be which makes it frightening.