Speak Literary Devices (Examples)

“The driver downshifts to drag us over the hills. The engine clanks, which makes the guys in the back holler something obscene” (3). “She is bursting with Merryweather Pride, all perk and pep and purple” (26).

“The first thing to go is the mirror. It is screwed to the wall, so I cover it with a poster of Maya Angelou that the librarian gave me” (50).

“I checked out a book from the library, Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Cool name. I settle into my nest with a bag of candy corn and the blood-sucking monster” (41).

“The turkey floats in the sink, a ten-pound turkey iceberg. A turkeyberg. I feel very much like the Titanic” (58).

“If I ever form my own clan, we’ll be the Anti-Cheerleaders” (50).

“I have worked so hard to forget every second of that stupid party, and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to do” (28).

“I can’t tell them what really happened. I can’t even look at that part of myself” (28).

“I can’t escape the arguments circling my head. Why worry about Rachel/Rachelle? (He’ll hurt her.) Had she done a single decent thing for me the whole year? (She was my best friend through middle school, that counts for something.) No, she’s a witch and a traitor. (She didn’t see what happened.) Let her lust after the Beast; I hope he breaks her heart.

(What if he breaks something else?)” (149).

“Mom loves doing the things that other people are afraid of. She could have been a snake handler” (15).

“Who knew there had been a war with the whole world?” (7).

“Mr. Neck has a steroid rage, screaming about Motivation and Identity and sacred School Spirit” (41).

“If she doesn’t sell a billion shirts and twelve million belts on Black Friday, the world will end” (57).

“Ms. Keen has been teaching since the Middle Ages” (65).

“Raven is the captain. Blondest of the blondes” (29).

“My social studies teacher is Mr. Neck, the same guy who growled at me to sit down in the auditorium. He remembers me fondly” (7).

“I should consider a career in a) forestry, b) firefighting, c) communications, d) mortuary science” (52).

After Heather dumps Melinda she sends her a card. “The card has a picture of two cutesy teddy bears sharing a pot of honey. I open it. ‘Thanks for understanding. You’re the sweetest!’ It is signed with a purple pen. ‘Good Luck!!! Heather'” (110).

“The girl with the arrested brother leans forward. As Heather shakes her pom-poms, the girl yanks my hair” (29). Melinda’s pain and discomfort at the pep assembly is contrasted with the energy and antics of Merryweather pride.

“I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone, to sit next to” (5).

“It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache” (3).

“Could I put a face in my tree, like a dryad from Greek mythology? Two muddy-circle eyes under black-dash eyebrows, piggy-nose nostrils, and a chewed-up horror of a mouth. Definitely not a dryad face. I can’t stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone I don’t even know” (17).

“IT sees me. IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I’d throw up” (45-46).

“I move the knife and fork so they look like legs. I place a piece of tape over Barbie’s mouth” (64).

“All her clothes wait patiently on hangers, organized by type—skirts together, pants hanging by their cuffs, her sweaters stacked in plastic bags on shelves. The room screams Heather” (33).

“Mr. Freeman is ugly. Big old grasshopper body, like a stilt-walking circus guy. Nose like a credit card sunk between his eyes” (10).

“The words fall like nails on the floor, hard, pointed” (193).

“I glue the bones to a block of wood, arranging the skeleton like a museum exhibit. I find knives and forks in the odds-‘n’-ends bin and glue them so it looks like they are attacking the bones” (63).

The pain of isolation and the struggle to be accepted by one’s peers can be difficult.

Finding one’s identity and maturing can be a difficult search to understand and accept oneself.

Never be afraid to speak up for yourself.

People are not always who they appear to be.