Reviews with content warning for Schizophrenia/Psychosis - Everything Here Is Beautiful

Grade: A+

What a heartbreaking and beautiful yet difficult book!

Through the eyes of 4 different characters, we dive into the depths of mental illness. Lucia suffers from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, something in between, or something different. Because doctors can't find an exact diagnosis, she struggles with treatment. The three other people in her life all want the best for her. We have her older sister Miranda, who fights to find a diagnosis and treatment plan and tries everything in her power to get Lucia to do what she needs to do to say healthy. Lucia's husband, Yonah, loves her dearly but feels that medication is not only not helping but is making her situation worse. Finally, we have her young lover Manny who doesn't understand her illness but desperately wants to do what is right.

None of these characters is a true hero, yet all of them try to act with Lucia's best interests in mind. All four characters are flawed. Sometimes you will hate them, and sometimes you will cheer for them. Ultimately, you will feel deeply for them. There are no heroes or villains here, just humans.

This book is, at times, a tough read. We dive deep with Lucia and the others in her life into the depths of her mental illness. If this material is troubling for you, you should take care with this book. Lee does not back away from some of the harder material and reading it can be excruciating.

This book was not always enjoyable, but it deeply impacted me. I would recommend this to anyone.

Content Warnings

careinthelibrary's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

I have complicated feelings about this book but it was really good. Compelling and readable, I kept being drawn back in by my concern for these characters.

This book captures the imperfect responses of various family and friends to a loved one's schizoaffective disorder. Lucia's sister is so protective of her to the point of being overbearing and condescending, reducing her sister's life to "did you take your pills" out of her desperate, obsessive concern. But it is through love, which makes it hard to condemn her reactions although they clearly drive a wedge between her and her sister and hurt Lucia's self-esteem. Ironically, Miranda is experiencing deep anxiety and paranoia but her own mental illnesses are deemed much more socially acceptable and she isn't infantalized as a result.

Yonah is less concerned about his partner's condition, hands-off and allowing Lucia to dictate her own treatment. I loved his chapters, his character who is more accepting and accommodating to Lucia, is also funny and strange. He's irreverent and a bit offensive at times, but his charm wins out.

Manny is afraid of so much, avoids talking about it with her, secretly watches her but doesn't want to intervene because he doesn't know how she'll react. His inaction is harmful but is it more harmful than Miranda's overcare?

This book really grabbed my attention with its chapters from Lucia's point of view which I was grateful for, she is able to speak for herself and not just be seen through the eyes of others (esp Miranda) who catastrophizes her sister's future. I can't speak to whether the mental illness rep is accurate from Lucia's point-of-view but it gave me some clarity to the lens of logic through which she saw the world and how it made sense from her perspective. Is her way of thinking and experiencing life wrong or harmful to others? No, but she isn't supported by a pharmaceutical-driven medical system nor by her under-educated family and friends. This failing of her community causes her to accidentally harm herself and others, not her mental illness. Very complex depiction throughout the book, and it's hard to know if I'm reading into this more than the author intended.

Mental illness is so often discussed as a massive burden on the family but it's clear that this burden is produced in part by Miranda's desperation and clinginess to her sister because of her own fears of how the world will react to Lucia and Manny's inability to have a candid conversation with her about her behaviours. Lucia doesn't ask for much if any help in this book, just wants to live her life in a world which is unforgiving to those who are unpredictable to others.

One note on Manny as a character, he felt a bit like a reductive stereotype in the chapters where we're reading about him from others' perspectives, not so much from his own chapters though. Not sure if other readers felt this way in part or all of his portions of the novel and that being said, the scenes that address his deep fear of deportation were palpable and tense.

Content Warnings

amiegold's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Lucia is a beautiful, optimistic and talented woman who finds herself struggling unexpectedly with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. We find ourselves following how she copes with this disease throughout her life through her eyes, as well as the eyes of the people around her. We hear about a period of time from her sister Miranda's point of view, then weave back to experience it from Lucia's perspective. This layered perspective opened my eyes to how easy it looks to outsiders to just get healthy, and how difficult it is for the sufferer to even identify what in their life is wrong.

We traveled from New York to Switzerland to Equador and back again. I appreciated the cultural accuracy that the author portrayed, it felt like I visited and got to know these places myself.

This book accurately conveys the fear, sorrow and grief that comes along with mental illness, both for the sufferers and the caretakers. Ultimately, it is a love story of sisters, mothers and daughters and family. It was a beautiful journey.

I only removed a half star for the detailed sexual exploits and infidelity of Lucia's partner, which I really did not feel was necessary for the story and took away from the intimacy I otherwise felt with the character.

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thelovelylibrarylady's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Everything Here Is Beautiful is not a book I would usually go for. It is a character-driven novel that explores the complexities of mental illness. While that is a common topic in many stories, Lee does something unique with this title and really hones in on how a person's mental illnesses can affect the well-being of themselves and their loved ones. There were parts of the story that I thought were repetitive and slow, but the beauty of the writing somewhat made up for it. My three-star rating is mostly a reflection of my personal enjoyment of this novel and it would be a disservice to not credit Lee for the level of talent she displays in this book. I would recommend this title to other readers who love novels with in depth characterization and the literary fiction genre as a whole.

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saiv's review

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

There's something immensely human about that feeling when you love someone, but hate them for their weakness, and then hate yourself for even thinking that, and so on. Lee gets this. Regret and guilt are two solid columns of stone rising up out the desert of isolation, and this author has the wisdom to see that while they're never going away, at least they can offer a little shade.

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amarrymeinbostonacademic's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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bookmaddie's review

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This book was just okay for me. I hard a hard time getting into it, and even considered not finishing it. It took until around halfway through for it to pick up a bit of steam to keep me going. From the way this book is summarized, I thought the story would be more about sisterhood, but instead the narrative focuses heavily on one sister, Lucia.

The point of view shifts throughout the book, circling around a central group of characters to tell Lucia's story. While it was interesting to watch Lucia through the eyes of different people who cared about her, I felt that none of the perspectives really added that much to the story, besides that of her sister, Miranda. I wanted more of their relationship, but Miranda's chapters often felt stressed and frantic, as she struggled to figure out how to best care for Lucia.

I thought the story got a bit more interesting when Lucia moved to another country, and to see that place through her eyes. But while that kept me reading, I still found it really hard to connect with any of the characters.

I think if you're interested in family stories, this might be interesting. However, be mindful of the intense subject matter that deals heavily with mental illness.

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nytephoenyx's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Everything Here is Beautiful is not a book that I would typically enjoy. It’s incredibly slow paced and deeply character centric. I’m torn between feeling that it was actually a very long book or if it only felt endless. I can appreciate Everything Here is Beautiful for what it is – a dive into sharing the struggles of someone who has a mental illness but wants to live a normal life. But I can’t say I enjoyed the book.

This book is a good fit for some readers – those who prefer serious books with complicated relationships and an emphasis on motherhood will likely enjoy it. I will warn that the book’s description is a bit misleading. On picking up Everything is Here Beautiful, I expected to read a story of sisters, of two parallel lives. This book is very much about Lucia. Intellectually you can infer bits and pieces about Miranda’s existence, but only in so much as it revolves around Lucia and their relationship not with each other, but with Lucia’s mental illness.

I’m always ready to pounce on a book that has a hyperbolic or otherwise problematic representation of mental health conditions. In this respect, I think Everything Here is Beautiful did a good job depicting a life and how a person can choose not to be defined by their mental illness even while it tries to control them. I personally have no experience with Lucy’s kind of mental illness – in the book, the doctors disagree on her diagnosis, but “bipolar” and “schizophrenia” are both tossed around – so I can’t relate as to whether or not it’s an accurate experience, but from an outsiders perspective, it feels good and respectful.

Everything Here is Beautiful has an interesting story and good research. I appreciate the Ecuadorian immigrant representation, the Chinese-American representations from two sides, the mental health representation. This is a good book for the right person. It’s a serious, slow-paced slice of life. If that sounds good to you, I recommend picking it up!

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