(Book Review) Everyone is Beautiful: A Novel

Lanie Coates is an extremely enjoyable character right from the beginning.  Everyone is Beautiful: A Novel opens with Lanie, her husband Peter, and their three boys relocating away from her family in Houston to New England, where Peter can pursue his music career.  At 35 with three small kids, Lanie has lost herself - but plans a major overhaul after an embarrassing series of events during the first day in their new town.


The book is amusing and the reader can't help but root for Lanie.  The complex relationship with her husband is believable, especially their sex life (or lack thereof) and their shared (a) desire to bring it back, and (b) confusion on how to do just that.  I especially like Lanie's stubborness on keeping her first found pleasure as "simply hers," even though she acknowledges how selfish it seems.


On the other hand, there are several moments where she has these long, drawn-out revelations to herself and, while acute and dead-on, it felt more like author Center didn't trust the reader enough to grasp these truths through Lanie without her spelling them out to us.  I also thought the kids were just a little too rambunctious.  As a mother myself, I know the amazing disasters that kids can cause, but really - it seems Center collected an assortment of worst kid-disaster horror stories and had Lanie's kids act them out.


In the end, Everyone is Beautiful is a nice read for a lazy day, and the point of the story is touching to me on a personal level - a woman remembering to care for herself as well as her family.  I recommend this to mothers of young children everywhere, especially if you feel a little lost in a sea of kid toys, frumpy sweatshirts, and sometimes-less-than-attentive husbands!

Rating: 3 Stars

  

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