All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover
Atria Paperback, 2018
*Trigger Warning: This book is largely about the emotional devastation of infertility. Heads up to anyone dealing with those raw emotions in their own life. If you’re not in the mood to have your wounds prodded or reopened, I won’t be offended.*
If you know me in real life then you already know that my husband and I went through three years of unexplained secondary infertility before we had our second daughter. So, to be completely honest with you, the truth is that there were a few times I wasn’t sure I could finish this book. But I’m glad that I did.
All Your Perfects tells the love story of Quinn and Graham. With heartbreaking juxtaposition, Colleen jumps back and forth between their past and present. We get see Quinn and Graham basking in the glow of all the endless possibilities for their love and their future family and we also see them both nearly destroyed by the brutal reality of infertility and the toll it can take on a relationship.
I don’t know if Colleen Hoover herself has ever lived through infertility. But, if not, her research is flawless. Certainly, no one infertility experience is the same. But the emotional maelstrom she describes is dead on the money. The most insidious thing about infertility is that it’s such a quiet, shame-filled affliction. No one seems to want to talk about it openly. So to see it brought into the light this way in Colleen’s book is wonderful.
“I feel weak for needing to grieve since no one has died. It doesn’t make sense that I grieve so much for those who never even existed.”
Ultimately All Your Perfects is a story about a marriage weathering the hard things. The unfair things. Real, ugly, unpredictable life. It’s about acceptance and true love. As you can see, I have marked this book to Hell and back. This one was rough.
But it’s worth reading.
