{Blog Tour} (ARC) Review: SAY WHAT YOU WILL by Cammie McGovern

Say What You Will
by Cammie McGovern
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Published June 3rd 2014 by Harper Teen
Format Acquired: ARC
Source: received from Publisher (Thanks, Sarah and Megan!)

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars meets Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park in this beautifully written, incredibly honest, and emotionally poignant novel. Cammie McGovern's insightful young adult debut is a heartfelt and heartbreaking story about how we can all feel lost until we find someone who loves us because of our faults, not in spite of them.

Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can't walk without a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive-compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more alike than either ever realized.

When Amy decides to hire student aides to help her in her senior year at Coral Hills High School, these two teens are thrust into each other's lives. As they begin to spend time with each other, what started as a blossoming friendship eventually grows into something neither expected.

MY REVIEW

(Thanks to HarperCollins International for sending me an ARC of this book! Please take note that this in no way affected my review.)

FEELS.

THE. FEELS.

ALL. THE. FEELS.

“This feeling will pass. The fear is real but the danger is not.” 

Amy Van Dorn is not like any other girl you've known. She's not normal. Literally. She's born with cerebral palsy. She can't barely walk, she can't talk. She uses some kind of wheelchair with a Pathway computer, with a human generated voice who automatically interprets whenever she types whatever she wants to say. Because of her condition, she don't have friends. So her mother hires people to watch over her and assist her at school. Until one day, they finally decided to hire students instead to make her feel more comfortable and uh, less awkward.

Matthew, one of the students who were hired by Amy's mother [Nicole] to be friends with her, has issues of his own to deal with. He has OCD. He keeps doing weird things, like tapping the lockers down the hallway, endless counting of things, washing hands and checking the faucet more than once. He do these thinks because he's afraid. He's afraid of hurting other people, or that other people might get hurt becuase of him.

Say What You Will introduced me to a whole new world of contemporary romance. Amy has a wide optimism, despite her disabilities. She's positive about everything. She's not even afraid of what the future might bring for her. She's a one strong and positive female character that will inspire every girl out there, disabled or not, to keep looking at the brighter side of life. On the other hand, Matthew doesn't know where Amy gets her wide optimism. He's so curious about Amy, her sickness, and most of all, her life. He didn't understand why she's very positive.

As they get to know each other along the way, little by little, they finally understood each other's issues. They may have hurt each other in a while, but they always find a way to make it up. I love the way they sent each other texts and e-mails. I love how they help each other's problems. I love how their friendship bloomed into something they never expected. I love the twists in the story! Didn't see them coming!

I admit, it's really hard to write a review that could justify this book. I never thought I could feel this way for both main characters in a book. I want more from their heart-melting love story!

MY RATING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cammie McGovern

Cammie McGovern was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and received the Nelson Algren Award in short fiction. Her work has been published in Redbook, Seventeen, Glimmer Train, TriQuarterly, and other publications.

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