Everyone Is Beautiful

September 29, 2008
When Lanie Coates moves from Houston to Cambridge, Mass., with her musician husband, Peter, she loses her support system and quickly becomes overwhelmed by her three small boys and a self-image that's sagging both literally and figuratively. In this agreeable mom-lit entry from the author of The Bright Side of Disaster
, Lanie, a former painter, finds beauty in everyone but herself, and especially adores Peter, even though the two of them seem to be drifting apart. The early chapters nearly sink beneath the weight of routine housekeeping details and scenes describing the children's bodily functions and fascination with their body parts, matters most parents have experienced, but which don't necessarily make for great fiction. However, as Lanie begins to find herself through a newfound passion for photography, the story gains traction, and the tension grows as her photography teacher turns out to be a smitten kitten. Like real-life marriage with children, this book offers enough sparkling moments to compensate for the tedium.

January 15, 2009
In Center 's lighthearted latest (The Bright Side of Disaster, 2007), a young mother yearns for self-realization while wrangling three boisterous preschoolers and a distracted husband.

Lanie Coates ' introduction to Cambridge, Mass., where her composer husband Peter has begun graduate studies, is a local park, where she hopes to find other mothers to befriend. The Coateses, including three boys, Alexander, Toby and Baby Sam, all under the age of five, moved from Lanie 's close-knit Houston neighborhood, leaving her supportive parents behind. At the park, the mothers recoil in shock when Toby bites another child. All, that is, but one woman, who asks Lanie when she 's due. But Lanie isn 't pregnant —she hopes. Just as she 's about to demure, Amanda, Lanie 's cheerleader high-school classmate, appears out of nowhere and offers to organize a shower. Determined to drop postpartum pounds, Lanie signs up with a local gym. Every weeknight, after the kids are in bed, Lanie works out on the treadmill, ignoring glances from a middle-aged fellow exerciser with Ted Koppel hair. Peter, busy with his piano, mostly leaves Lanie to single-handedly supervise the boys. Hoping to revive her artistic career, former painter Lanie takes up photography and finds that she 's a natural despite having to fend off her instructor, the very same Ted Koppel look-alike. When Peter, on the eve of a career-making trip, catches "Ted " kissing Lanie, a communication impasse ensues, not helped by Lanie 's tendency to mislay cell phones. Amanda, mother of preternaturally docile Gracin, tries to mentor Lanie 's makeover, but tempers her beauty and sex tips with disillusion. (Amanda 's wealthy but homely husband has decamped, bursting her Martha Stewart bubble.) 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 clichs, while harkening pleasantly back to '50s-era motherhood humor classics like Jean Kerr 's Please Don 't Eat the Daisies.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2009
Center's second novel after "The Bright Side of Disaster" is a keeper. Lanie has just moved her family from Texas to Cambridge, MA, so that her husband, Peter, can realize his dream of becoming a professional musician. But while Peter is enthusiastic about his new challenges, Lanie mourns the loss of her old house in Houston and struggles not to go insane with the lack of money and her three little boys running wild. Changes happen slowly for Lanie. After having three babies, she is carrying extra weight, but the high of alone time at her new gym is enthralling. Then her mother mails some old cameras to Lanie, who signs up for a photography course taught by the creepy but talented Nelson. As Lanie's weight goes down and her artistic skills go up, her life with Peter is shaken. Can her marriage handle her transformation? The challenges and hilarity of young family life, combined with Lanie's heart-wrenching search for herself, will have readers laughing and crying. For all popular fiction collections.Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2009
Everything in Lainie Coates life is changing. Her husband receives a scholarship to a prestigious music school, so the family moves from her native Houston to Cambridge, Massachusetts. WhilePeter is involved with his studies, Lainie feels lost and alienated caring forher three young sonsuntil she meets Amanda, an acquaintance from high school, at a local park. Lainie is at her frumpiestin sweatpants, still carrying the weight from her babywhen a strangerasks when her baby is due.Mortified, she lies. How does one explain her error to gorgeous Amanda with her perfect daughter? This embarrassing incident starts Lainie on the path to her own self-discovery, that is, if she can find the time and the outlet. Center takes a woman at her most vulnerable time andsets 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)