Title: Everyone is Beautiful
Author: Katherine Center
Finished: April 8, 2009
Pages: 233
Published: 2008
My first Early Reviewer book of the year. This one was just as enjoyable as the rest.
Everyone is Beautiful tells the story of a mom of three boys who finds herself moving away from her friends and family with her husband Peter, so he can go back to school. So, when a woman at the park mistakenly thinks she’s pregnant with her fourth child, Lanie decides she needs a change in her life as well instead of just being a crazy mom running and cleaning up after three boys and her husband.
What I found wonderful about this book was not only that it was easy to read, but also easy to relate to. I don’t have any kids (yet) but I have a large family and spend a lot of time around other people’s kids so I see the effect take place when you children turn to monsters all at once and feed off each other. But I also related in other non-childlike ways. I picked out so many passages throughout the book that screamed at me that I was reading about my own life or my future life, which doesn’t happen very often.
A couple of my favorite passages that relate directly to my life are:
“I would have given the thing away entirely, but Peter, who did not understand the power TV had over me – and who could, in fact, watch TV and read a book at the same time – wanted to keep it.”
“The idea of things in our house in Houston moving at a steady comforting pace that they always had – my dad going out each morning at six for his three-mile walk with neighbors Jocelyn and Bill, my mom gardening in the backyard in the same style floral gloves she’d worn since I was an infant – had been more comforting for me than I’d realized.”
Even the ending was beautiful, summing up a lifetime of thoughts and statements into a nice package for the reader, the whole story coming together full circle. In the end, as a reader, I myself started to believe more that EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.
*Challenges – 999 Challenge, 50/100+ Challenge, New Authors Challenge, RYOB Challenge, Book Binge
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