Say What You Will

            In the book Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern the theme is don’t let your weaknesses take over your strengths. Examples of this is Amy over coming her disability, Matthew concurring is O.C.D., and Amy thinking more highly of herself.

            The first example is Amy over coming her disability. Amy has C.P., which makes it so she cannot talk, walk without help, eating without making a mess and she cannot control her muscles that well, but she still is a normal teenage girl on the inside. Everybody treats her differently because of the way she looks, which makes her think that she will never be normal. Amy is a really bright person though.  Throughout high school she took courses over the summer and gets great grades. In the book, one of her peer helpers Sarah said “ Yale, Brown, Stanford, Columbia…” (McGovern 113). These are all places that Amy applied to. Amy ended up getting into almost all of the schools she applied to and chose to go to Stanford. Amy could have easily made her having C.P. get in the way of her going to college. Instead she made the most of her being a great student and went to a great school.

            Another example is Matthew with his O.C.D. At the beginning of the book, it was really bad, but then he became one of Amy’s peer helpers, and they became really good friends. Amy would give him tasks or goals to do to help him. She would tell him to try to wash his hands only once after going to the bathroom or try not to tap the lockers. One thing he did was really hard for him. He got a job at a movie theater, which is a pretty dirty job. He would have to do jobs were he would get grease all over him or clean the bathrooms fast and not take hours cleaning every surface in there. He also finally admitted he had a problem, which took him years to do and went to see a doctor. Matthew would have hard days were he would want to give up but then he would have really good days which made him keep going. Matthew pushed though his weakness and finally concurred it.

            The last example is Amy not thinking highly of herself. She has had a crush on Matthew since middle school and she has never thought any guy would like her. Secretly Matthew really liked Amy too and thought she was amazing. She thought that since she didn’t look like other girls then she would never get him to feel the same way about her as she did about him. Finally though she went with her instincts. Amy has a great personality and decided to use that to her advantage, Matthew and Amy finally do go out and are both happy. Amy was letting how she looks take over how she is smart, funny, nice and has an overall an amazing personality.

            Amy had a serious disability but she over came it. Matthew had serious O.C.D. but he finally admitted it and got help. Amy had a crush on Matthew for years and finally told him how she felt and it turns out he felt the same way. Amy and Matthew put their strengths over their weaknesses.