All Your Perfects

by Colleen Hoover

I crack open my cookie and slip the fortune out of it. “If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.”

Originally, this book was going to be called, “All Your Perfections.” There were many variations of this line in the beginning, but once I began writing the scene this quote appeared in, I changed “Perfections” to “Perfects.” I had received a fortune cookie earlier that day and a word was grammatically incorrect, so I pulled from that experience as I was writing the scene. Sometimes small things in my life end up in my books. I think that’s inevitable with any book an author writes. It’s hard not to find inspiration in everyday things, no matter how small or insignificant. Little did I know that day when I went out to lunch, my fortune would inspire this quote and eventually the title. The whole quote sets the tone of the book for me and it was important that it appear in the first chapter. It takes Quinn and Graham years to come full circle and really feel the magnitude of that quote, but they eventually get there.

“You’ll cry tonight. In bed. That’s when it’ll hurt the most. When you’re alone.”

I’m not a very emotional person. Out of all my female characters, Quinn probably resonates with me the most. She was dealt a heavy blow in the first chapter when she found out her fiancé was cheating on her, but she was surprised at what little emotional reaction she had to the discovery. When Graham tells her it’ll hit her later...that she’ll cry when she’s alone...it’s because that’s usually how I process my own emotions. It takes a while for something to sink in, and when it does, I prefer to grieve in private, when I’m alone.

But nowhere in that jeweler’s explanation did he say the ring symbolizes eternal happiness. Just eternal love. The problem is, love and happiness are not concordant. One can exist without the other.

I think with any marriage, there are times when couples may feel like the happiness has waned. Life is stressful and for two people to go a lifetime together without encountering rough times and unhappy times is almost impossible. But a couple can be unhappy without falling out of love. In Graham and Quinn’s situation, they lost sight of their happiness. But because of how much they still loved each other, they worked to find that happiness again in another form, rather than walking away from each other as soon as their vision shifted.

The struggles Graham and Quinn face in All Your Perfects are not struggles every reader has been through, but I do believe the issues within their relationship are very common. It’s easy, after years of marriage, to fall into a pattern of coexisting without a connection. You can sleep in the same bed with your spouse every night, while possibly feeling more distant from them than you ever have. A lot of readers connected to this aspect of the book and said it helped them take a step back and realize they were living this kind of relationship and needed to do something to regain that connection.

Apologies are good for admitting regret, but they do very little in removing the truth from the actions that caused the regret.

In this scene, Quinn was hurt by Graham’s actions and words. Even though he apologized and admitted he regretted those actions, it did very little to ease the pain of what he’d done. Quinn wasn’t in a good place during this scene. She was full of resentment, pain, disappointment. It’s hard to find the forgiveness and light inside yourself when everything else inside of you is dark and murky.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he says. “Now you know exactly what to look for. When you meet someone who is good for you, they won’t fill you with insecurities by focusing on your flaws. They’ll fill you with inspiration, because they’ll focus on all the best parts of you.”

I think this was Graham’s way of telling Quinn that this is what she did for him. She was able to change the way he saw himself because she only saw good things in him, where his ex saw disappointment. I chose to write the book with a “then” and “now” pattern, alternating each chapter to show their relationship in the past and the present. I wanted to show Quinn’s personality in the past, when she had the whole world and all its possibilities in front of her, vs. the present, where Quinn lost sight of what was most important to her in the beginning. This quote takes on a different meaning in the “now” chapters because Quinn begins to focus on her own flaws and insecurities.

Now we’re both full of so much pain, I don’t even know where to go from here. No matter how much you love someone—the capacity of that love is meaningless if it outweighs your capacity to forgive.

This was in the midst of Quinn and Graham’s downward spiral. Graham’s actions were unforgivable to Quinn in this moment. She realized that no matter how much she loved him, if she wasn’t able to forgive him, that love would be pointless. She found herself faced with a tough decision. She could either forgive Graham and work to repair their marriage or she would have to accept that their marriage was over. Because without forgiveness, her love for him would not be enough.

“Our marriage hasn’t been perfect. No marriage is perfect. There were times when she gave up on us. There were even more times when I gave up on us. The secret to our longevity is that we never gave up at the same time.”

This scene is actually something I pulled from my own life. I watched an interview once where a couple was giving marriage advice after being married for over sixty years. The reporter asked them what the secret to a long marriage was and the man said, “We never fell out of love at the same time.” The quote stuck with me, and even though I changed the quote up slightly to fit the book, the meaning behind his words has always stuck with me. He was so honest. Marriage isn’t about a perfect existence. It’s about balance, and also... luck. Because what would have happened to that couple had they fallen out of love at the same time? They’d probably be another statistic.

He grabs me by the waist and lifts me off the bed, throwing me over his shoulder. He carries me over the patio threshold and back outside to the balcony where he slides me down his body as he sits on the swing. I’m straddling his lap now, holding his face in my hands. “That was a really sweet gift,” I whisper. “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “I didn’t get you a gift. I didn’t know I was getting married today so I didn’t have time to shop.” Graham slides my hair over my shoulder and presses his lips against the skin of my neck. “I can’t think of a single gift in the world I would push you off my lap for.” “What if I bought you a huge flat screen TV? I bet you’d push me off your lap for a flat screen.” He laughs against my neck. “Nope.” His hand slides up my stomach until he’s cupping my breast. “What about a new car?” He slowly drags his lips up my throat. When his mouth reaches mine, he whispers hell no against my lips. He tries to kiss me, but I pull back just enough. “What if I bought you one of those fancy calculators that cost like two grand? I bet you’d push me off your lap for math.” Graham slides his hands down my back. “Not even for math.”

“If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.” I think about it for a moment. About how fitting that fortune is for my life. I’ve spent way too much time putting all of my focus on my infertility. So much so, my husband and all the other things that are perfect in my life were being forced to take a backseat.

This quote makes an appearance at the end of the book to show how much Quinn and Graham have grown from their first meeting in the hallway. At the time they opened that fortune, they had no idea that it would be what helps them find their way back to each other in the end.

A lot of readers caught on to this small easter egg in All Your Perfects. If you’ve read Finding Cinderella, you’re aware that Six put a child up for adoption in Italy when she was there on a foreign exchange. Fans of Finding Cinderella saw this tie-in as the answer to the long-standing question: “What happened to Six and Daniel’s baby?” I didn’t want to give Graham and Quinn a perfect ending with a child in the book because to me, the focus of this book was their marriage. I wanted them to find their way back to each other without a baby “fixing” their issues. With that being said, I did write purposely time the book to fit with the timeline of Finding Cinderella so that readers could leave the book knowing that Graham and Quinn eventually adopt a child and that child is Six and Daniel’s. I’m not opposed to one day writing a short follow-up to show this all coming together. I’d love to visit Daniel and Six again. They were one of my favorite couples to write about.