Wicked Review: Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern

Published: May 5, 2015

Publisher: Harper Teen

Acquired: Paperback

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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. 

I don't know why I constantly torture myself with reading books that will ultimately kill me on the inside. Maybe, I'm a sadist that way. I have no idea.

Amy Van Dorn and Matthew Malone have this complicated friendship. For one, Amy, despite her cerebral palsy and her Pathway, is a very smart girl yet she's very naive. Matthew showed her that the world isn't as wonderful as she thinks it is.

Amy made a promise to herself to make friends as she starts her senior year in high school. No one knows Amy very well, except for the fact that she has a talking computer and a walker and that she has an aide beside her. But she was determined to change that when she suggested to her mother that they hire kids her age to be her "friends" so that they can introduce Amy to other kids their age as well. Out of the four, Matthew stood out. Mainly because Amy likes him. And that he's just like Amy.

Both of them hide behind their disabilities: Amy with her cerebral palsy and Matthew with his OCD. It's like their shield and at the same time, it's their leverage against the world and against each other even. Amy figured to help Matthew get over his OCD by giving him assignments, all the while secretly pining for Matthew. Matthew was oblivious to all of the little hints Amy's been dropping, all because he's scared of his own feelings for her.

College tore them apart. Amy got accepted into a prestigious university while Matthew's trying to figure out his life, a life without Amy in it. Until this one incident that changes their lives forever. And change it did.

Say What You Will is very subtle. Or maybe that's just putting it mildly. It packs a punch that leaves you breathless. I've always been a fan of contemporary, romance or not, and no matter what people say against it, I love it anyways. Cammie MCGovern has a flair for plot twists. Plot twists are very tricky. Just like jokes, plot twists need that perfect timing and Say What You Will has it.

It's easier said than done is what they always say but sometimes, saying it is as hard as doing it. No one can really perfect that.

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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Wicked Review: A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall

Published: August 26, 2014

Publisher: Swoon Reads

Acquired: Borrowed Paperback

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The distinctive new crowdsourced publishing imprint Swoon Reads proudly presents its first published novel—an irresistibly sweet romance between two college students told from 14 different viewpoints.

The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.

But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship.

Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together....

Again, I would like to thank my Misfit Queen, Jayvee, for lending me her copy of the fluffiest book I have ever read in my entire life.

This book is the cutest book I have ever seen. The synopsis is cute. The cover is cute. The ending is cute. Gabe is so cute. Lea is cute. There's this cute Squirrel. The story is cute.

So, there are fourteen viewpoints in this story. Each one of them have both encountered Lea and Gabe one way or another and noticed something really special about the two of them. You could see the different sides of the two characters from a different perspective and not just the main character's own which is very refreshing. I mean, the resident perverted bench and the squirrel are part of the fourteen, like, who would've thought?

Gabe and Lea cross paths every time. It's like the universe planned that they see each other ALL THE TIME. Gabe, well, is VERY shy. In Filipino, he's torpe (tohr-peh). He likes Lea very much. They share interests and they run around the same circle of friends. But, Gabe finds it hard talking to people. Not that he's a tortured soul or anything. He's deaf in one ear, which I think if pretty forgivable. Lea thinks that Gabe is ignoring her and things got out of hand.

I can barely count with my two hands the time I desperately want Lea and Gabe to just GET OVER THEMSELVES AND KISS ALREADY. They had to wait until page 238 to kiss!!!!!

Can I just say that page 238 is the cutest thing ever? YES IT IS THE CUTEST THING EVER. I mean, sure, it wasn't the fireworks kind of kiss but it was enough to melt my cold cruel heart.

A Little Something Different is such an easy read. I read it within a day. The story is simple. The characters are simple. The writing is simple. No fuss. No drama. No complications. No one died. It's pure, unadulterated, honest-to-goodness kind of story.

Wicked Review: Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang

Published: September 9, 2014

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Acquired: Borrowed Paperback

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On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. 

Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect?

First, I would like to thank my Misfit Queen, Jayvee, for lending me her copy. I wouldn't be devastated if it weren't for her.

She wished to be happy, and fell asleep with an entire sky above her.

Liz Emerson was popular by nature. She hung out with the cool crowd and went to the coolest parties. And yet, her life was bleak, meaningless, and empty. Suddenly, her status doesn't matter because she feels empty inside. She hate silence. She hates coming home to an empty house with the silence consuming her whole being.

Liz spent her life ruining others. She brought them down and she was too late to remedy the wounds she has inflicted. I felt sad for her really. I am a self confessed mean girl. At times, I would stay stuff I would regret but then obviously, I'd be too late because the damage is done. I've hurt everyone and it leaves a hollow feeling inside.

Liz looked back and counted the bodies, all those lives she had ruined simply by existing. So she chose to stop existing.

The book alternates from before Liz crashed her car to events that happened after she crashed her car. Normally, I'd get confused with point of view alternation, but not here. Amy Zhang did a wonderful job with writing this story. At every turn of the page, emotions pour out. I mean, seriously. I had a hard time keeping myself in check because I don't want to embarrass myself in public while I'm reading this.

She wanted to go back. She wanted to be a little girl again, the one who thought getting high meant being pushed on the swing and pain was falling off her bike.

People think that talking about feelings is easy. But it's not. Especially when you grow old. At 21, I still wish pain was just like falling off of my bike or having a paper cut. It's easier said than done. This is where Liz and I connected in a way. You see, I understood her pain. I understood why she hurt. As much as we really want someone to talk to about it, we really can't. It's one of the hardest things to do. We humans are such fickle beings. No one can really understand what goes in our heads.

It is then, when she releases her need to understand, that everything falls into place. 

Amy Zhang used to have lots of imaginary friends. When people told her to grow up, she turned her imaginary friends into characters and started telling their stories. When she isn't writing, she can be found playing piano, hitting balls on the tennis court, or struggling through her weekly existential crisis. She lives in Wisconsin with her family.

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