Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

When it comes to positive, relatively clean women’s fiction with satisfying endings, I find Katherine Center to be a fairly solid choice. Some of her books are less believable than others, sure, but her characters are likable and her stories have depth beyond the romantic relationship. I have, therefore, been slowly working my way through her backlist, and my latest listen is Everyone Is Beautiful (finished today). It was originally published in 2009, which seemed appropriate–it focuses on motherhood, and I had my second child in 2009–and while there were very enjoyable things about it, I do think her writing has gotten better.

Here’s the thing, though–some of the parts that weren’t my favorite were just hard to read about when you’ve been through some of them yourself. Children do take a toll on a marriage–for reasons beyond what Center’s book (ahem) centers on–and parenting is exhausting, and depending on how those struggles are represented, it can still feel like it’s too soon for those struggles to serve as entertainment. The one thing that legitimately felt like a newer-author sort of weakness was the pacing. When you read a lot you have a pretty solid feel to what the angle of a story arc should feel like, and Everyone Is Beautiful has too long and slow of a buildup paired with a definitely short period of resolution. If I’d been enjoying the buildup more I might have cared less, but again–too soon. As Lanie tries to cope with a significant move for her husband’s career, she realizes that she may have lost too much of herself on the altar of motherhood. Trying to figure how how to get the right amount back–because you can’t actually go back, so there has to be balance and compromise–is her mountain to climb, and there are some consequences before she figures out what the right amount is. The ending is definitely satisfying, however, and that made up for some of my wincing. Some readers might find Lanie’s struggle cathartic, and that does make sense; it just wasn’t so for me.