Everything Here is Beautiful

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Lucia and her sister, Miranda. Miranda and her mother arrive in the US from China when she is very young and her mother is pregnant with her sister, Lucia. Her father remains behind in China and the three make a life for themselves in New York. When their mother dies of cancer when the sisters are adults, the sisters grow closer. While each sister creates her own life, Miranda’s is more traditional, with a job in fundraising and endless meaningless dates. Lucia is adventurous and unpredictable and settles with Yonah, an Israeli expatriate who seems to genuinely care for her. And then, Lucia begins to hear voices. But this isn’t the first time this has happened. This a story about Lucia’s mental illness and how it affects her and everyone around her. Told poignantly from Miranda, Lucia, Manuel and Yonah’s perspectives, this story will give you insight into a life lived with mental illness.

What a beautiful story of sisterhood, family bonds, friendships, but mostly, mental illness. You will love all of the characters in this book. Lee is masterful at creating a group of oddball personalities who are ultimately, charming and you root for them, flaws and all. I also really enjoyed the variety of countries and cultures that are represented in this story (China, Israel, Ecuador, Brazil, Switzerland and more). It feels like a real picture of the world we live in.

All that said, this story was a little difficult to read as the main theme is mental illness. I have a family member who is mentally ill and is a full-grown adult. In case you don’t know, in our country, it is illegal to force any medical care on an adult who doesn’t seek it. So, he keeps doing these bizarre and inappropriate things and instead of getting the help he needs, he gets more and more embedded in the legal system, as that is the only avenue our country has to deal with this sort of behavior. This just further fuels his paranoia and fear, which puts him in a constant cycle of inappropriate behavior and court battles. It is so sad to watch this unfold, and to feel so helpless as his adult siblings try to help him, with no real solution in sight.

When I think about mental illness (what I know of it, which is, truthfully, very little), I keep thinking that it is the little miracle in our brains. We are so complex and unique that one event, one moment, one cell off and it triggers this avalanche of misfired synapses and we become ill. Mental illness is, ultimately, our brain trying to cope with this world around us in the best way it knows how.

I keep thinking about the TV show, Designing Women. I love that show and often watch reruns. There is an episode where Julia Sugarbaker goes off on one of her tirades on Bernice’s (her mother’s oddball friend, whom she has grown close with) niece, Phyllis, who accuses her aunt of being crazy. Julia says, “This is the south and we’re proud of our crazy people. We don’t hide them in the attic. We bring them right down to the living room to show them off. See Phyllis, no one in the south asks if you have crazy people in your family, they just ask which side they’re on!” Amen! Let’s take our crazy family members out of the proverbial attics and adopt Julia’s attitude! So, I’ll start. Mine is on my father’s side. Which side is yours on?