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Title: All Your Perfects
Author: Colleen Hoover
Sub-genre: Women’s fiction/skirting the edge of romance
Content Warnings: Infidelity, infertility, miscarriage on the page
Colleen Hoover is one of those rare authors who can take subjects I don’t usually want to read about and make them so compelling. I think it probably has to do with how she develops her characters, and how she makes you really feel their emotions. This book skirts the edge of being a romance and I will set your minds at ease and let you know there is an HEA.
Quinn and Graham meet auspiciously one night in the hallway outside Quinn’s fiance’s apartment. Quinn’s fiance and Graham’s girlfriend are having an affair so the pair share a moment as they confront their cheating significant others. They reconnect some time later, have a whirlwind romance, fall in love, and get married. On the surface, everything about their marriage seems picture perfect. But when Quinn struggles to get pregnant–something she desperately wants more than anything–their relationship begins to struggle. Quinn has fallen into a deep depression and Graham has no idea how to help her. They go through a lot of tumultuous times, but in the end, are able to forgive each other and reconcile their relationship.
This book deals with a lot of tough topics and in anyone else’s hands, it might have felt heavy handed and depressing. But the way these characters are shaped makes them so relatable, I was left feeling their pain right along with them. The story is told in alternating Then and Now chapters, so we see the pair falling in love at the same time we see them falling apart. So many of their issues with infertility were just absolutely heart-breaking, and it was one of those situations where you could see they were both hurting each other, but neither was doing it intentionally. There was no real bad guy in the relationship, other than the circumstances they were forced to deal with. I loved the way they were eventually able to come together and the ending especially was sweet, but realistic. It was one of those times when I was legitimately happy for these fictional characters to get their HEA. If you can handle the specific brand of trauma the characters are faced with, this is 100% a book I would recommend.
Overall Rating: 5 stars