Reader-Response: All Your Perfects

 All Your Perfects, by Colleen Hoover, tells the story of a boy and a girl, and their development both as a couple and as individuals. The book's theme is about imperfections, which is obvious when you consider its title (in Portuguese, Todas as suas Imperfeições). Hoover separated the book into chapters called "before" and "after", starting with Before. This first chapter presents how the main couple, Quinn and Graham, met each other. 

They both had other partners at the time, and they met on the very same day that they found out the two of them were being cheated on -Quinn's and Graham's partners were sleeping together. Stunned by their situation, Quinn and Graham decided to sit by the apartment door where the other two were, and there they talked. In the following scene, we can already form an opinion about Graham's personality: he is wise and mature enough to suggest to Quinn not to put up a scene, despite their situation, making her agree to act calm and indifferent. Since the beginning of the book, he has been a captivating character. 

Moments later, Quinn spots the deliveryman at the apartment door, where she was waiting with Graham. He was delivering Chinese food. Her favorite. She knew her ex-groom had ordered it—for another woman. She took the food from the deliveryman and straight up opened it to share with Graham. Eating the Chinese food together, they decided to open the fortune cookies. His message was not so important, but Quinn's quote shaped the book: "If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfections will dim". The number behind both of their fortune cookies' messages was the number eight. 

The next chapter is for the After, where Colleen Hoover will not explain exactly what is happening right away. Instead, in the first pages, you will feel a little lost in the events, which is a type of organization that makes me feel much more excited to keep reading. However, once you have comprehended the scenes narrated, one can say you've boarded a unique and exciting journey written by Hoover's loving mind. 

In the book, the chapters named "before" tell the perfect love story between Quinn and Graham, our couple. Six months had passed after the day they met, and it was on the eighth of August (08/08) that Quinn and Graham went on a date, with different people, in the same restaurant. After some hidden conversations and deep, but smooth, confessions, they ended the day with each other. Since then, their love story has evolved to be much profound and caring, not without, however, a few stones along the way. 

The chapters named "after" tell their story in the present. Quinn has discovered that her -their- biggest dream as a couple would never be fulfilled -to be a family. She could not bear a child of her own, and all of their alternative tries had failed somehow. 

After many disappointments, the imminent defeat began to haunt Quinn. She avoided her husband's emotional support because she felt guilty about never getting over their situation, even though he was always trying to cheer her up. She avoided his touch and his care because she began to feel disgusted by herself and everything that could be remotely related to the fact that she could not generate a life. 

The emotional neglect that Quinn inflicted on Graham caused him to cheat on her eventually. Even though she could not find the strength to show it, she loved him very dearly, which was part of the reason for her pain, not being able to give him a family, becoming so unbearable. After that incident, Quinn felt even more disheartened, and a few days later, she went to visit her sister in another country. Spending much time away, Graham ultimately went after her in search of answers. 

The book's theme is about the acceptance of our flaws. Quinn considered herself a failure because she could not give her husband and her a child, which was their biggest dream as a couple. This disgrace slowly took its place in her heart, where it started to grow. As it grew each day, this dark tint spread to all the other aspects of her life, including her marriage. She thought about her flaw every day, and everything reminded her of her flaw. She felt ashamed of her flaw and thought that her husband would never be fully happy being with her, because it would always be only her, and not her and their baby. 

However, her mistake was to shine light on her flaw only. She was enough, and she could make her husband joyful, with or without a child. The book ends with this punch on the foot of our stomach, when Quinn finally accepts, with the help of her wise Graham, that she does have many qualities, and that she is still the woman with whom Graham fell in love in the first place. The dangers of focusing excessively on our flaws, is that, at some point in our lives, the flaws will be the only things we will see, and thus the only things we show to others that try to love us, and one day those people will go away, and we will regret not being thankful for when we had them.  

Be aware of the good things you have. Shine your light on what makes you happy. Always remember to yourself that the people who love you love your personality and the things that make you unique, and not what you give them or what you do.