Say What You Will

Cerebral palsy means Amy walks with difficulty and talks via a speech-enabled computer; Matthew’s life is increasingly limited by OCD. Although they’ve attended school together their entire lives, they’ve barely talked to each other. They’re also very different: super-achieving Amy is choosing between elite colleges, while Matthew can’t fill out his college applications. Amy’s an optimist, and Matthew’s a fearful worrier. They develop a relationship when Amy convinces her fiercely protective mother to let her have peer assistants. In her YA debut, adult author McGovern (Neighborhood Watch) avoids gooeyness or condescension by making Amy and Matthew individuals, not diagnoses, and their relationship not just plausible, but suspenseful, as they try to figure out what they can be to each other. Watching Amy and Matthew grapple with big questions—Is love possible for them? What about sex? What do they want after high school? Can mistakes be forgiven and loss survived?—readers will be surprised, moved, amused, worried, hopeful, and grateful to have spent time with them. Ages 14–up. Agent: Margaret Riley King, William Morris Endeavor. (June)