Audio Book Review: All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

Genre: Adult Fiction/Romance

Pub. Date: July 18, 2018

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Source: Personal Copy

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Goodreads says, "Colleen Hoover delivers a tour de force novel about a troubled marriage and the one old forgotten promise that might be able to save it.  Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.  All Your Perfects is a profound novel about a damaged couple whose potential future hinges on promises made in the past. This is a heartbreaking page-turner that asks: Can a resounding love with a perfect beginning survive a lifetime between two imperfect people?"

Readers meet Quinn, who appears to be living a wonderful life. She comes from a wealthy background, her sister is her best friend, and she is engaged to be married.  All of this comes crumbling down when she finds out her fiancé is having an affair.  The boyfriend of the woman her fiancé is having an affair with also finds out at the same time as her. This chance meeting brings her and this guy, Graham, close together due to the circumstances. As time marches on, she realizes she has feelings for Graham despite the horrible circumstances that brought them together.  The story jumps back to the past when Quinn and Graham are just starting out and life is wonderful. They have their whole lives in front of them and their relationship is new and all-consuming.  We then jump to present day where Quinn and Graham live very sad lives all caught up in the stress of infertility.  Can they get past this major hurdle or will their lives come crashing down catastrophically? Colleen Hoover's All Your Perfects is a heart wrenching audio book that depicts the ups and downs of a marriage that is scarred by infertility and the lack of communication.

The opening of the audio book really hooked me in All Your Perfects. We meet Quinn and soon she finds out her fiancé is a total jerk.  However, all this has brought her to Graham who is pretty much the perfect guy. Well, until he isn't many years later.  Nonetheless, Graham is the guy for Quinn and perhaps things are as they should be? All of her disappointment and the canceled wedding has led her to her happily ever after. And for awhile, I thought that was true until we find out that Quinn suffers from endometriosis, which causes her to have some major fertility issues.  Quinn has always wanted to be a mother, so this destroys her. IVF didn't work and adoption isn't an option right now, thanks to Graham's past, so is this all there is for Quinn? Then there's Graham.

Graham is a complex character in All Your Perfects. I really was totally enamored with him until he started buckling under the pressure. Yeah, sure, it's hard to support Quinn when she's all depressed about the state of her fertility and has pretty much checked out, but that doesn't give him an excuse to just give up.  And in a way he does. And sadly, so does she despite the fact that she loves him with every fiber of her being.  It leaves readers truly wondering if they can weather this storm.

What is so gut-wrenching about All Your Perfects are the flashbacks to the past when Graham and Quinn were so in love and so happy. It's sad to watch things unfold and if you have ever experienced infertility in some way, you know how earth shattering it can be.  It's horrific and the sadness can suffocate you.  I have to say that Hoover depicts infertility so very well....better than any other novel I've read.  I wish more novels would feature the ups and downs of infertility, because not only can many women relate, it also helps to take the stigma away.

So, what held me back from giving this audio book a higher rating? Ultimately, I just was feeling really emotional and sad about it.  Listening to All Your Perfects was hard at times.  I was looking for an escape, so being stuck in Quinn's world was a jagged little pill that I didn't want to swallow. However, that's a testament to Hoover's ability to make Quinn's infertility journey feel so real. 

So, if you are looking for an audio book that is gut-wrenching, real, complex, yet still desperately romantic, check out Colleen Hoover's All Your Perfects.  This was my first of her novels and I'm sure it won't be my last. Hoover fans, what do you recommend I read next? Let me know in the comments.