gilda_elise

Thirteen-year-old Abby Hubble lives in an unhappy home in the Sierra Nevada foothills where her father makes life miserable for her and her mother, Mary. One day Abby witnesses a man dump a litter of puppies into the nearby river. Diving in to rescue all seven, she knows she won’t be able to bring them home. Afraid for their fate at the pound, she takes them to an abandoned cabin, where all she can offer is a promise that she’ll be back the next day.

To grieving widower Elliot Colvin, life has lost meaning. Looking for solace, he retreats to the hunting cabin he last visited years ago, before his wife’s illness. What he discovers is not at all what he expected: seven puppies and one determined girl with an indomitable heart.

As Abby and Elliot’s friendship deepens, Abby imagines how much better her life—and the puppies’ lives—would be if her mother were married to Elliot instead of her father. But when Abby’s father moves the family hundreds of miles away, Abby and her mother must decide how long they’re willing to defer happiness.

Seven Perfect Things is a story about joy, where to find it, how to know it when you see it, and the courage it takes to hang on to it once you have it.

I really liked Abby, which took me by surprise, considering how I normally stay away from books where a teenager is the main protagonist. I knew I would probably enjoy the book, and I did, because, hey, seven puppies. But I was expecting cardboard cut-out characters, as the book followed the same path as so many books with this same plot do. The kid gets what she wants, everyone lives happily ever after.

And the book does sort of follow that path, but in a way that makes sense. The characters act in a way that I could see real people acting, given the same circumstances. Even the secondary characters are good, even those that aren’t actually good people. There are setbacks. Bad things happen. And no one is perfect.

So, yes, I had the ending figured out pretty quickly, but there were some unexpected twists getting there, which added to my reading enjoyment. I’ll very likely be picking up more books by this author.