Almost

Nora Vasquez is winning at everything. So why does it feel like she's losing herself?

Third in her class. Varsity midfielder. Model student. Dependable daughter. Nora has spent years building a life in which nothing is left to chance.

She has a system for everything.

Get up before the day does. Stay one step ahead. Never make the mistake you could have prevented.

And it works.

Until it doesn't.

Because beneath the grades, schedules, practices and carefully calculated decisions is a truth Nora has become very good at avoiding: she isn't afraid of failing.

She's afraid of being the reason something fails.

So she chooses the safe answer. The safe decision. The safe pass.

Every time.

But when an observant new friend begins asking questions Nora can't neatly answer, and a soccer coach sees something in her game that reaches far beyond the field, the system that has carried her this far begins to show its cracks.

For the first time, Nora must confront a possibility more frightening than failure:

What if the life she has worked so hard to perfect isn't actually the life she wants?

Almost is a sharply observed, funny and deeply relatable coming-of-age novel about perfectionism, academic pressure, friendship, family expectations and the exhausting pursuit of being good at everything.

It is a story for anyone who has ever rewritten work that was already good enough, measured themselves against everyone around them, or wondered when doing their best quietly became never being allowed to get anything wrong.

Because sometimes growing up isn't about becoming the person you planned to be.

Sometimes it's about discovering who you are when you finally stop keeping score.