“If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.”
From bestseller to BookTok, the reading community has gone absolutely crazy for anything Colleen Hoover. Aside from the admirable characters and heart-wrenching plot, Hoover presents a narrative that highlights a realistic representation of a modern love story in, All Your Perfects.
Romance novels are meant for optimist, sentimental dreamers like myself. We read through the pages of two soulmates becoming perfectly aligned. The ideal case of the right person, right time. A person that will suddenly stumble into your life and give you all the things you need to make you feel whole.
The love that makes you feel like loving is easy. Like as long as you have this person in your life, there will be no such thing as a bad day.
What happens when the passion dies? Or should I say, what happens when your body refuses to give you the one thing you want most in the world? When the touch of your partner is filled with nothing but shame and agony. When you have an unfillable void, do you give up?
In All Your Perfects, Colleen Hoover takes readers into the intimate lives of Quinn and Graham as their story unfolds over the years of struggling with infertility. It’s a story of what happens after the happily ever after.
Hoover does not put readers in the middle of Quinn and Graham’s love affair. Instead, she chooses to have the story unfold, shifting from past to present as we see a modern love story prevail. The present is filled with pages of complex and profound issues the couple experiences after having trouble conceiving, juxtaposed with the past of two young lovers who were so happy and free.
When we think of romance novels, we tend to take the word realism out of our vocabulary. But Graham and Quinn’s relationship is as real as it gets.
Infertility causes our protagonist, Quinn, to fall into a state of depression that creates a disconnect between her and her husband. Readers are invited to take an intimate look at one of the most painful struggles a couple can face with brutally honest views of how infertility impacts both parties in a relationship.
A modern love story is not just about understanding a singular side of a relationship. Rather, it’s about acknowledging the duality of the emotions of a couple, both individually and as a unit.
People believe marriages are destined to end only when the love is gone. But what if the love is still there and two people have changed? Quinn and Graham are not the same as they were when they fell in love.
No magic or saviour will come in to rekindle the spark between Quinn and Graham. There is just a box. A box filled with letters from their wedding day and promises they made to one another. It reminded them both of one very important thing in a relationship:
“No matter how much you love someone—the capacity of that love is meaningless if it outweighs your capacity to forgive.”
All Your Perfects showcases a realistic representation of a modern love story because of everything hopeless romantics try to ignore, the imperfections. Quinn and Graham have an imperfect marriage, whether that’s because they fail to communicate or because Quinn feels like she can’t give her partner what he wants.
They are two flawed characters that deal with their own individual problems concerning how they navigate through hardship. However, Hoover presents much more than just a fictional couple. She’s illustrating the struggles couples will face behind closed doors that are not always evident to an outsider.
Romance novels tend to sweep readers up in an emotional love affair. Readers fantasize about their dream partner through the characters curated by writers that seem perfect. It fills that desire to experience a great love that goes beyond something one could ever imagine. Quinn and Graham definitely undergo an emotional roller-coaster but not one that individuals fantasize over.
But that’s what makes All Your Perfects real. A relationship can survive despite the things it cannot control.
Ultimately, it was not the love letters that kept the marriage alive; the sheets of paper filled some old box from days before their wedding. Rather, it was the words, the love, that kept these two together.
“If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.”