"Everyone is Beautiful"

Author: Katherine Center
Genre: Mommy/Chick Lit
Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2009

Pages: 233

My Rating: Recommend

Everyone is Beautiful is a fun "mommy" read, but don't expect much depth.

Synopsis (book jacket): Lanie Coates’ life is spinning out of control. She’s piled everything she owns into a U-Haul and driven with her husband, Peter, and their three little boys from their cozy Texas home to a multiflight walkup in the Northeast. She’s left behind family, friends, and a comfortable life–all so her husband can realize his dream of becoming a professional musician. But somewhere in the eye of her personal hurricane, it hits Lanie that she once had dreams too. If only she could remember what they were.

These days, Lanie always seems to rank herself dead last–and when another mom accidentally criticizes her appearance, it’s the final straw. Fifteen years, three babies, and more pounds than she’s willing to count since the day she said “I do,” Lanie longs desperately to feel like her old self again. It’s time to rise up, fish her moxie out of the diaper pail, and find the woman she was before motherhood capsized her entire existence.

Lanie sets change in motion–joining a gym, signing up for photography classes, and finding a new best friend. But she also creates waves that come to threaten her whole life. In the end, Lanie must figure out once and for all how to find herself without losing everything else in the process.

Katherine Center’s Everyone Is Beautiful is a hugely entertaining, poignant, and charming new novel about what happens after happily ever after: how a woman learns to fall in love with her husband–and her entire life–all over again.

Review: This is fun "Mommy Lit" and I was hooked on the first page. I identified easily with Lanie. The author knows what it's like to be a mom. She knows what it's like to chase after one child while simultaneously nursing another (see Chapter 1).

It's almost comical how moms go through the same issues - dealing with their changing bodies and trying to strike a balance between kids and a husband, while not losing themselves in the process.

As much as I loved the storyline, I do feel certain aspects of Lanie's life were missing or remained undeveloped. Her husband Peter remains a flat character and a mystery to the reader. Lanie's in love with him and still finds him attractive, but they have intimacy issues and lack of time to commit to their relationship. Bye the end of the story though their marriage is rejuvenated, and it just sort of happens by. . .POOF. . .magic.

Additionally, Lanie's transition from her home state of Texas to New England is rarely mentioned. She left family and friends and yet, the move to a different climate, away from everyone she loves and everything that's familiar to her is glossed over like it was no problem at all.

There are several situations that seem to unfold in a manner most convenient for the author and not in a way this is necessarily "believable".

I found this line in the synopsis to be misleading, "But she also creates waves that come to threaten her whole life. In the end, Lanie must figure out once and for all how to find herself without losing everything else in the process". The waves that threaten her life were not ones she created and I don't really think they "threatened her life". To say that is over-the-top dramatic and trite. These two sentences try to make something out of nothing.

As the synopsis says, Everyone is Beautiful is entertaining, somewhat poignant, and definitely charming. However, it is not the story of a woman falling in love with her husband all over again. Lanie was never out of love with Peter, not even close, she just wanted to find herself.

As long as the reader doesn't over think this and takes it at face value, it's a good book. For moms, it's definitely a fun read.