Almost, Maine

by John Cariani

Based on one of the most popular plays of the last decade, John Cariani's Almost, Maine is a heartwarming and heartbreaking story that will have you thinking about love in an entirely new way.

Welcome to Almost, Maine, a town that’s so far north, it’s almost not in the United States―it’s almost in Canada. And it almost doesn’t exist, because its residents never got around to getting organized. So it’s just . . . Almost.

One cold, clear Friday night in the middle of winter, while the northern lights hover in the sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in the strangest ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. Love is lost and found. And life for the people of Almost, Maine will never be the same.

With characters you'll adore in a setting you'll never forget, Almost, Maine is a love story like no other, for fans of "Dear Evan Hansen."

Genres: Plays, Romance, Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary, LGBT, Theatre

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2020

About the author

John Edward Cariani is an American actor and playwright. Cariani is best known as the unwavering forensic expert Julian Beck in Law & Order. On stage, he earned a Tony Award nomination for his role as Motel the Tailor in the 2004 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. As a playwright, he is best known for his first play, Almost, Maine, which has become one of the most frequently produced plays in the United States. He starred on Broadway in the Tony Award winning musicals Something Rotten! and The Band's Visit.

Reviews

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read many plays and I was absolutely unfamiliar with John Cariani's Almost, Maine, which appears to be very popular, but I am very glad I picked this magical novel and spent an unforgettable day following lives of numerous residents of Almost, a slightly 'disorganised' town somewhere up the north where you can admire the northern lights and dream abour love.

The story begins with Ginette and Pete who are in this awkward stage of their first love when it is not clear if their best friend is something more, although the special feeling, special ligtness that fills them when they are together is a pretty good indicator. Ginette and Pete are close, very close, but they are also at the beginning of their relationship, so there is so much they still have to learn about their new role (Do you remember this feeling when logically you knew that you still have to discover so much about the person you fell in love with, but somehow you felt you know them better than anybody else because you were so attuned to to their every breath and slightest movement?). Ginnette misunderstands Pete's words and starts walking away. During her walk she gets a glimpse of lots of other people, all of whom are discovering what love is or isn't on that particular Friday night.

I was struck by how poetic this novel was and how streamlined at the same time. You guess quickly where a particular story is going and what the author is telling you, and yet, you let yourself get transported into this wonderful metaphoric place.

Charming, sweet, sentimental (the author makes a distinction between romantic and sentimental saying that 'sentimentalists believe everything's going to to work out just fine'), this book would make a great romantic present for someone special, provided they believe in love.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Feiwel & Friends for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

[Brandi Lemieux · Rating 1 out of 5]

162 sentences that start with “And” in the first chapter. Having lived in Maine my whole life I really wanted to like this but it reads like one giant run on sentence. Back to the library it goes.

[Brenna Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Edelweiss for the ARC of this sweet little novel! I was actually in a production of Almost, Maine the play, so when I saw this up for grabs I knew I wanted to read it. It was just as poignant as its theatrical counterpart, with some really beautiful additions thrown in. I wasn't sure how well the story would lend itself to novel form, but I think John did a really great job of keeping the heart of the play intact while bringing it to new life here in 2020. The dialogue was largely the same, but the thing we really gain is the motivation of these characters and what these lines mean. In a show, the actors have to figure it out for themselves; we spend weeks dissecting scenes and bits of dialogue to get to the meat of the characters, but here, John has space to make Almost come to life himself, and he knocked it out of the park.

In the play, none of the characters in these small vignettes interact with one another. It flits from scene to scene to scene with little effort, showing snapshots of life in this small Maine town. However, here in the book, we see how all of their lives are interwoven as we follow Ginette as she walks home from confessing her love to her best friend. Magical things begin to happen all around her as relationships begin, end, and everything in between. Every place that she passes in Almost is lit up with life, and we enter those spots for a moment to see what that life is like and then return to Ginette's journey. The book literally comes full circle as Ginette makes it to her house on the far side of Maine and realizes she needs to return to the start to be with the boy she loves. The hope of a fledgling love is the buoy of the story as we hit highs and lows throughout. Something I love about this story in both versions is that it doesn't just tell about the Disney kind of love and life. It cuts open the truth in love; that it can end, that it can be ugly, that it can be crazy and unexpected.

It also does such a wonderful job of representation. All of these characters and their separate scenes are taken directly from the play; save for one. There is a new edition of a tale of a non-binary person as they try to figure out their life when their uncle dies, bringing their best friend back into town who has some news of her own. There is a very sweet scene of two guys in the beginning as well who literally 'fall' in love with each other. I believe this book is labeled as YA, and even though there are a lot of young adult characters, this book (and the show as well) explores the love between older characters and really shows that it's never too late for love. The personalities of all the characters differ so greatly and it is ridiculously easy to relate to at least one. There are also so many lessons to be learned from it like you don't have to be stuck in a toxic relationship. Love can hurt, but you shouldn't be afraid of it. Love changes you. Love can be found in the most unlikely of places. Things that you grow up hearing all your life but that you never really listen to, because you feel like you know it all, especially when you're young.

This book accomplishes exactly what the show sets out to do in that it opens your eyes to love through some really beautiful, funny, and at times, sad cliches. I mentioned 'falling' in love earlier, but you're also met with someone 'waiting on the other shoe to drop', a man who became a shell of himself because he 'lost Hope', and a woman whose heart literally broke into pieces. I loved the use of the Northern Lights throughout, and how it ended on such a positive note, because even in the midst of all the sadness that rumbled through Almost, Maine, there's still a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm so glad that I got to read this, and even more so because it brought some nostalgia and happiness to my days as I remembered working on this show, and what an amazing time it was. I recommend picking this book up for sure, and if you ever get a chance to see the play, take it. It'll leave you with the same weightless feeling that John describes here within these pages. The feeling of love.

[Lynn Plourde]

DNF--gave it a 100 pages. I was excited to read about the County (northern Maine), one of my favorite places with some of my favorite people and home to my ancestors. Maybe this worked as a play, but the book was weird and frustratingly repetitive with lines repeating over and over again, and action repeating over and over again, and sentences starting with "And" repeating over and over again. It was supposed to be about a magical, northern lights night, but I didn't feel any magic, only annoyed.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of COURSE I was going to love this book, I produced the play on which it's based. That overt bias notwithstanding … this book is as charming and sweet and wonderful and true as the playscript, and from which it grows in wonderful new directions.

For those who have seen John Cariani's play, the young adult novel brings wonderful new depth to the characters who inhabit the small, isolated village of Almost, an unregistered township in far northern Maine. Somewhere outside of Presque Isle, where author John Cariani grew up. Life in Almost is … different. And yet not. People are straightforward, but not simple. They see life in direct terms, even when it's confusing and dark and hard to understand. They're like a lot of us. Almost.

Some of the stories come from the play, but they have grown in ways that are truly literary. Emotions are more fully spelled out, since there are no actors to provide shading and subtext. While directed at young adult readers, it never plays down to them - or those of us more mature readers. Instead, its purity and simplicity are exactly what drew me to these stories in the first place. Cariani illuminates their lives with absolute honesty. They have kids and jobs and money problems and fears about the future. But they have hopes and dreams, as well.

One cold night, when the northern lights appear in this treeless sky, everything changes. Well, the locals would tell you it's not that cold, since 19 degrees is far from artic in these climes. But emotions rise and fall at every temperature. People find love, they realize they may have lost love, they find that the fire has just burned down a bit low, and may need but a breath to reignite.

I know these stories so intimately, from working with John all these years on the play, the favorite project of my entire career. For those of you who have seen the stage version, you will greet old friends in a new light. For those who have not seen these stories performed live, you'll meet a wonderful array of people facing life's challenges, much as we all do. The sad guy who's lost his girl. The hopeful teenager who wonders if this boy understands that she loves him, and is so confused when he tries to answer, and fails. The ones who left and the ones who stayed.

There's a new story, as well. While Almost exists in a timeless place, the issues people face are those which we all must acknowledge Right Now.

When I first read the script for ALMOST, MAINE, many years ago, I thought that John Cariani's voice was utterly original. He spoke about people in a manner that was clear, direct, honest, without condescension about those folks whose lives are all too easily dismissed or overlooked. The novel version of ALMOST, MAINE retains that kind, gentle, thoughtful quality, while deepening the emotional landscape.

Of course I love it. I admit to having no emotional separation from the material. But if you're lucky, you won't either. It's universal in the best sense.

In an unsettled world, it's a lovely reminder of the timelessness of human emotion.

Welcome to ALMOST, MAINE.

[Caitlin Theroux · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. The opinions expressed herein are mine alone and may not reflect the views of the author, publisher, or distributor.

This should have stayed as a play. I love that Cariani is writing from experience living in the county, and yeah, some places up there are friggin' small and barely anything happens. The problem here isn't the story, per se. The problem is with how it's written.

Told through a narrator and dialogue, I imagine the stage play is a ton of fun, a night that you can talk about for a long time and then book tickets for a second viewing. The book doesn't work. The sentences are stilted and unvaried, the use of prepositions made me want to scream, and so many one-sentence paragraphs started with "And." While that probably wouldn't have made me run from the room to pitch myself out the window, the merciless use of the word "and" littered the prose outside of those one-sentence paragraphs.

The characters were fine, I guess, but again...you can tell throughout the whole thing that this started out in a different medium. Sometimes that works! But the transformation from dialogue and stage direction into novel form didn't succeed here. This book is the equivalent of someone reading a play aloud as you drive down a road littered with pot holes and black ice, in a truck that has bald tires and no muffler, with a trailer hitched up the back.

I wanted to like it. I'm disappointed that I didn't. Can't win them all, though, I guess.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up enjoying this much more than I initially thought I would. As Cariani describes the play himself: "[T]his play is almost bad. It toes the line." And at first I thought it was bad, but as I read more I became to understand and appreciate it better.

[Mike Marthinsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so excited to read the book based on my favorite play. It did not disappoint, almost every chapter was able to instill the emotions I remember from the play. The book was able to capture some characters in a way the play could not, and any novel that makes me cry is a memorable one.

There are definitely some scenarios and characters that are hard to do justice in writing. Also, the writing style seems to change throughout the book and I was unable to tell if it was on purpose based on the scenario or just based on how the author was feeling at the time of writing.

To me Almost, Maine is not only about discovering love exists, but also that everyone has their own hardships to overcome and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. I am glad I read it.

[Jolene · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son was in this play a few years back. He played Lendall. I loved the play and was so excited to see the play adapted into a book. I was afraid it would be written like a script, but to my delight, it was written as a regular novel. The story is quirky, funny, magical, and sweet, just like I remember from the play. I highly recommend reading this heartwarming book and also, if given the chance, see the play.

[Larry H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Almost, Maine is a collection of quirky, sweet, often romantic connected stories about one night in a remote New England town.

Almost isn’t quite a town, but there’s no real accurate way to describe it. It’s so far north it’s nearly in Canada but it’s still in the U.S. It’s a place like many others, populated by average everyday people, and nothing particularly exciting happens there. It is a pretty perfect place to catch the Northern Lights every now and again.

Except for one night. One Friday night in the middle of winter, strange things start happening to people who are in the midst of doing ordinary things.

Longtime best friends start falling in love with one another, completely without warning. A man planning to go to bed early finds a woman camping on his property. A woman doing laundry in her boarding house basement encounters a new resident. A man tries to shake himself out of his loneliness by going to a bar.

This book is composed of stories that take place on that one night. They’re very loosely connected in that there is a narrative hook that threads one story to another. Some are love stories, some are stories of hope, miscommunication, friendship, and/or self-discovery.

I found many of the stories endearing but after a while they all started resembling one another in some way. Some stories definitely captured my heart but some were a little less impactful for me, and I found the thread that tied the stories together a little gimmicky.

In the end, though, Almost, Maine was cute and heartfelt.

Check out my list of the best books I read in 2020 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2020.html.

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/the.bookishworld.of.yrralh/.

[siena quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

would love to annotate this!

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was cute and I liked reading it after having read the play it is based on, but I didn’t love it. It was almost, depressing to be honest because of how mundane so many of the characters’ lives were, but also cool for the same reason. If you’re a super-fan of the play, you’d definitely enjoy this but you don’t need to be one.

[julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

aside from the chapters being way too long, this book honestly was really good. i loved how as ginette walked and passed places a new love story began. chapters were way out of proportion tho.

[Samantha Dupree · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Having been in the play "Almost, Maine" back in 2017 playing Glory alongside my husband playing East, I have a bit of familiarity to this ethereal and weird subject material. (I also played the uncredited role of "Marci's shoe" which one night fell from the catwalk and rolled perfectly mid-stage, a feat I never accomplished again in our six show run)

I was a bit skeptical when this was first announced because I truly loved the experience of that play. We had a small cast with much double-casting and we all grew very close through the experience. I was worried the novel would simply be a complicated version of the source and I wasn't interested.

The cover was cute though so I had to give it a shot.

This is a lovely story, perfect to read in the winter around a fire. It is written in short, staccato sentences that feel like someone telling a story and making sure they pause to let the right beats land. The supernatural and fabulistic elements never seem weird or out of place and in fact the idea of faith in, well, anything is a key component to this story. The faith that the person you love will come back to you. The faith that you will be found. The faith that you can be accepted for who you are.

This version uses the play's 1st and 2nd act opening/final scene of Paul and Ginette as the anchor story with Ginette's journey through Almost taking us by all the other players. It feels like it has the scope of a small town but it feels connected by simple mentions of previous persons throughout the novel.

Honestly the best part for me was the addition of a story I hadn't heard because it was not in fact part of the play! Full disclosure, this play was banned in places in my state due to the scene "They Fell" which feature's two men "falling for each other" literally. A local high school tried to put this on and there were efforts to shut it down which thankfully failed. This new scene has elements that make it feel like it would cause this same pushback and I love that it acknowledges that within the story. I won't give it away but it was a very touching story that I felt fit right in with the originals in heart and quirk.

All in all I really enjoyed this walk through Almost and down Memory Lane. I sent many pictures to my cast mates when a line of dialogue rang out in my head with their voice and it was fun to remember the time we all experienced a little magic.

Recommended for those who want to be found.

[Hannah | Reading Under Covers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book I added to my tbr way back when, which I primarily read for the nostalgia factor of putting this play on in high school.

It did manage to tick all of those boxes, but the writing itself was very drawn out (a quirkiness which works on stage, but not so much on paper), and it just seemed to go on an on.

The characters were still cute, but I think they and the story would have benefited from another round or two of edits!

[Claire :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with the town and characters of Almost, Maine immediately. It really reminded me of The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman, a collection of short stories of love and loss, sprinkled with some magic here and there.

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this play/novel was incredibly sweet. I could see all the locations and feel all the situations with such clarity.
I can how people could be annoyed by the style of writing, more like a running inner monologue - but I thought it was charming and it warmed my soul

[♛primadonna♛]

My brother starred in his high school's version of this play. It was the most beautiful and funny play I've seen.! Looking forward to this book.!

[Melissa Joulwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars. Such a sweet, surprising book sprinkled with magic.

[semma · Rating 3 out of 5]

sweet but sentences started with a LOT of ‘and’s

[Molly Sposato · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you’re from maine, must read. so cute, very creative and extremely introspective.

[Katerina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting play! Looking forward to its acting.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t realize this book was originally a play.

It took a bit to get into the rhythm but I really
liked it.

The characters felt so real.

…and that cover!!

[Estibaliz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Goodreads Giveaways and Fierce Reads (the young adult arm of the Macmillan Children's Publishing Group) for providing me with an ARC of this novel. Here's my honest review...

'Almost, Maine' is a cute read, very Valentine's like.

It's also more 'New York, I love You' than 'Love Actually'. That, and short stories are not really my thing, as much as a good structured old fashioned novel, with all the deepness and character building.

John Cariani has developed a nice writing style to translate the play into paper and, once again, cute is the best way to describe the resulting product. Cute characters, cute little stories, cute setting...

But I can't but leave it at just the medium point of the 2.5 stars (with the half extra visible star for objectivity).

Also, and just being picky, those acknowledgements need some work...

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every chapter fills your cup, all the small town feels <3

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

This is a sweet collection of linked stories about love and magic in a little town in northern Maine on the road to nowhere. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I enjoyed it.

[StephanieD · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There is a place in northern Maine that is so far north, it’s almost not in the United States.
It’s almost in Canada.
But not quite.
Not many people live there.
Not much seems to happen there….
It’s a place called Almost.”

2.5 ⭐️

The premise is cute and I see the vision, but this didn’t work for me. The pros were that it reads like quickly and that reading it while in Maine contributed positively to my reading experience since there are a lot of Maine references. But overall, I just did not like it.

The characters were annoying and I didn’t care about any of them. Many scenarios were weird or sickly sweet in a cringey way. The frequently expressed “it was 19 degrees Fahrenheit which is basically a sauna because this is Northern Maine” was so eye roll worthy and represents the book well.

And the writing was quirky.
And it utilized a lot of short phrases and repetition.
And that got old very fast.
And if I read, “the night that the extraordinary things did or did not happen” one more time I’m going to scream.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

been meaning to re-read this play for a minute and i just love it so much!! i love all of the mini stories each in scene and if this was made into a movie or mini series I would 1000% watch it. this play will always be so special to me 🥹

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a YA book based on the play of the same name. It was an okay read and filled in the emotion and turmoil that you didn’t always see in the play.

[Danielle Rene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had just a hint of magical realism, which was perfect. Every chapter was a slice of somebody's story unfolding on the same night that everyone in this almost-town could see the Northern lights. I loved the wild scenery of Northern Maine and the poetic way that this was written.