Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern (review)

Matthew is a shy and awkward boy whose anxiety and OCD makes it difficult for him to face the future; Matthew’s classmate Amy is a bold and bossy overachiever whose cerebral palsy means she speaks through a device and needs aides to help her through school. In Amy’s senior year, she decides to have peer aides instead of professionals, and becoming Amy’s aide allows Matthew proximity to a girl he’s long been intrigued by. As the year progresses, the two bond, teetering toward a romance that both desire but each is too afraid of rejection to admit to. When Amy goes off to college, she’s thrown by just how bad the experience turns out to be; she’s also pregnant, and though it’s not with Matthew’s baby, he’s the one who stands beside her through delivery and placing the baby for adoption. The individual portraits of Matthew and Amy are effectively wrought, and their dynamic is plausible; Amy, as the talented and overprotected kid who has no idea what she has to lose, is especially vivid. The details about Amy’s adaptations and limitations are matter-of-fact but never overpowering, and her isolation and failure to thrive at Stanford are both understandable and heartbreaking. The plot, however, undermines the impact of the characters; the storytelling confusingly shifts back and forth in time, the will-they/won’t they drama gets overplayed to the point of contrivance, and the momentum stalls before the significant post-graduate events occur, losing the impact of final third of the book. The portraits remain compelling, though, especially with the perceptive insights into Amy’s experience and her growth; readers looking for a place to go after Johnston’s landmark Accidents of Nature (BCCB 6/06) may find Amy and Matthew’s story a thoughtful next step.