Theme of Courage for Beginners

In my new book Courage for Beginners by Karen Harrington, the story is set in Texas where a girl wishes that she was a character in a book. Mysti and her best friend Anibal are best friends, until he ditches her to become a hipster so he can be with his crush Sandy Showalter. I think automatically that the theme of this book is that you don't have to change who you are to please other people. In the book, Anibal says to Mysti, ""Are you going by Missed-teeth this year?" Missed-teeth? Oh. Missed. Teeth. There is a roar of laughter from the other two boys. Of course, they have nice, straight teeth."" This quote proves that Anibal would do anything to get his crush's attention, even though it means that he is hurting his best friend. When you change, who you are, your real friends would fade away and you would be stuck with people who you think that they are your friends. I think this theme is very important to add in our lives because most of us want to change who we are just so we can either be popular, or that other people can see us differently. But the truth is, you are loosing part of who are and replacing that with something you're not. We need to accept ourselves in our own way instead of changing for others.