Almost There by Laurel Garver

Almost There by Laurel Garver

Dani Deane, #2

Paris, the City of Lights. To seventeen-year-old Dani Deane, it’s the Promised Land. There, her widowed mother’s depression will vanish and she will no longer fear losing her only parent, her arty New York life, or her devoted boyfriend.

But shortly before their Paris getaway, Dani’s tyrannical grandfather falls ill, pulling them to rural Pennsylvania to deal with his hoarder horror of a house. Among the piles, Dani finds disturbing truths that could make Mum completely unravel. Desperate to protect her from pain and escape to Paris, Dani hatches a plan with the flirtatious neighbor boy that only threatens the relationships she most wants to save.

Why would God block all paths to Paris? Could real hope for healing be as close as a box tucked in the rafters?

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Almost There is a descent contemporary Christian fiction novel about a teenage girl who wants nothing more than to get her mother away from the hustle and bustle and pain and terror of their life and take a trip to Paris which, she is sure, will heal all her mother’s old wounds.

I’ll start with the plot. It was original and well-paced; it kept together and ended perfectly. I found the subplot with Laughlin to be a little distracting … and it made Dani sound a little … I don’t know, shallow. Perhaps that’s not the right word, though. I’ll talk about it more in the character section.

However, for the most part, the subplots were nice and didn’t interrupt the main story too much.

I especially liked learning about Dani’s grandfather Daniel Tilman’s backstory. It was creative and dramatic and perfect. It touched my love for sadness just right. I know that sounds ridiculous – a love for sadness. Maybe I should say I was empathetic, but it’s not completely true. I do love sadness in novels … you know, as long as there’s a happy ending. Happy-ending dramas are the only ones I can bear.