There are five main literary lenses: genetic, formal, transactional, sociocultural, and text to text. The first lens, genetic, looks at how the author relates to the book. This usually reflects on how the author came up with the idea for their book. Laurie Halse Anderson usually finds inspiration in people who are going through difficult life situations. The inspiration for Speak came from two places in particular. Anderson’s daughter was getting older and she wanted to write about the struggles of being a girl. She also wrote this book on a personal level, because she was a victim of sexual assault herself before her freshman year. So she wrote Speak from the perspective of both mother and victim. She is also from New York, which is where