Christian Romance – The Girls in Plaid Skirts

Author: Jenny B. Jones

Age: Young Adult

Genre: Christian Romance, Contemporary Romance

Released: October 4, 2011

Click here to read summary.

There You’ll Find Me is a super sweet Christian YA book in which Finley goes to Ireland hoping to find a connection to her brother who was killed in Afghanistan. Finley is such a real character, struggling in not only her relationship with God but also in her relationships with those around her. She tries to find God in the same way her brother did, but eventually comes to terms with the fact that she will have to find Him in her own way.

Here’s the thing: I don’t like a lot of Christian books. I feel like so many of them are really blah with flat characters and religion is pushed like crazy. This book didn’t feel like that. The characters are awesome (I’ll expand further below), Finley has an interesting voice and is easy to connect to, and her relationship with God seems realistic. Finley feels like God abandoned her after her brother was killed in Afghanistan, so she takes her brother’s old journal and traces his steps to Ireland. That’s where he found God, so she hopes she will find Him again there as well. I feel like most of us have been at a point when we wonder where God is and why He’s not stepping in, stopping the horrible things that are happening to us, but that doesn’t mean we give up on Him completely. That’s what I love about Finley—she continues searching for Him and trusting that He is there, even if she can’t see Him and her world feels like it’s crashing down all around her.

As for the other, non-Finley characters: There is a really adorable famous Irish actor and I just really love him. He has his own problems to deal with, but keeps finding himself hanging around Finley, who wants nothing to do with him. (Don’t you just love that I-hate-you tension in a fictional relationship?) The two of them set out to explore the Ireland that Finley’s brother fell in love with.

I also want to give a shout-out to the secondary characters. Most of them are pretty awesome. I love the family that Finley stays with in Ireland, and also the old lady (I can’t remember her name at the moment, sorry) that she is assigned to spend time with as part of a community service project for school. It’s beautiful to see how all the characters’ stories are interwoven, and how they are all able to learn from those around them. Every single character makes their own mistakes, and some of them learn from them, while others don’t.

This book is about many things. Forgiveness. Love. Trust. There are a lot of deep, serious issues addressed while the overall tone of the book is pretty fun and adorable. I absolutely love the end, and I totally needed tissues for it.

Four out of five stars!

Content Advisory:

None! This book gets a star in our review archive for passing our content advisory guidelines!

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