Everyone Is Beautiful

The day I decided to change my life, I was wearing sweatpants and an old oxford of Peter s with a coffee stain down the front. I hadn t showered because the whole family had slept in one motel room the night before, and it was all we could do to get back on the road without someone dropping the remote in the toilet or pooping on the floor.

We had just driven across the country to start Peter s new job. Houston,
Texas, to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I d had the kids in our tenyear-
old Subaru the whole drive, two car seats and a booster across the
back. Alexander kept taking Toby s string cheese, and the baby, except
when he was sleeping, was fussing. Peter drove the U-Haul on the theory
that if it broke, he d know how to fix it.

On the road, I was sure I had the short end of the stick, especially
during the dog hours of Tennessee. But now Peter was hauling all our
belongings up three flights of narrow stairs, and I was at the park, on a
blanket in the late-afternoon shade, breast-feeding Baby Sam. Peter had
to be hurting. Even with our new landlord helping him, it was taking all
day. And I was just waiting for him to call on the cell phone when he was
ready for us to come home. Or as close to home as a curtainless apartment
stacked high with boxes could be.

We d been at the park since midmorning, and we were running low on snacks. Alexander and Toby were galloping at top speed, as they always did. I m not even sure they realized they were in a new park. They acted like we might as well have been at home, in Houston, the only place they d ever lived. They acted like the last five days of driving hadn t even registered. I, in contrast, was aching with loss.

I didn t like this park. Too clean, too brand-new, too perfect. The
parks at home had character monkey bars fashioned like cowboys,
gnarled crape myrtle trunks for climbing, discarded Big Wheels with no
seats. And we d known them backward and forward every tree knot,
every mud hole, every

Katherine Center is the New York Times bestselling author of What You Wish For, Happiness for Beginners, The Lost Husband (now a movie), and five other bittersweet comic novels about how life knocks us down and how we get back up. BookPage calls her the reigning queen of comfort reads. She lives in her hometown of Houston with her husband and two kids.

What a clear-eyed rendering of the grimy, exhausting, beautiful mess that is early motherhood! I laughed, winced in recognition, and cheered wholeheartedly (sometimes out loud) for Lanie as she struggles to learn how to love everyone enough and still give part of herself to herself. Marisa de los Santos, author of Belong to Me

If you like novels with happy endings that will remind you of childhood fairy tales, then Katherine Center s Everyone Is Beautiful is the perfect book . . . Bound to catch the sympathetic attention of women looking for stories of self-improvement on physical and emotional levels. This is a breezy read that glows, in part, because its characters bask in the sunny side of life. USA Today

Endearing . . . unpretentious, silly, and honest. People

Katherine Center has written a novel that will strike a chord in the heart of any woman who has ever tried to raise small children . . . Center has a deft and humorous touch . . . Everyone Is Beautiful will make you laugh out loud, even as you wince in recognition. Free Lance Star

Part mommy lit, part chick lit and part red hot romance. Readers, especially new moms, will identify with the main character s struggle to balance parental responsibility with adult needs and desires. The Examiner, Houston

Lighthearted . . . In less deft hands, the horrors of the out-of-control Coates toddlers would resemble bad reality television, but Center s breezy style invites the reader to commiserate, laughing all the way, with Lanie s plight. Avoids the obvious cliches, while harkening pleasantly back to 50s-era motherhood humor classics like Jean Kerr s Please Don t Eat the Daisies. Kirkus Reviews

Center takes a woman at her most vulnerable time and sets her on a journey to find herself without losing what she holds most dear in a superbly written novel filled with unique and resonant characters. Booklist

Agreeable