Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson, L. (1999). Speak . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
Melinda was very depressed because she was an outcast at school.  There was a summer party that  someone called the police while there.  Everyone has found out that she is the one who called the police.  As she gets more depressed, a new girl arrives and they become fast friends.  When her depression becomes unbearable, their relationship ends.  Melinda becomes friends with her science lab partner and things are starting to look up.  She finally gets up the nerve to tell what really happened at the summer party.  She was raped and the boy who raped her was finally arrested.  The school finds out the truth of why she called the police.  This novel is  dark, modern, and realistic fiction because it deals with depression after a traumatic experience.  If this book is enjoyed, then Many Stones by Carolyn Coman would be another book to read.  It is about a girl who goes to South Africa to volunteer at a school and is murdered.