Everything Here Is Beautiful

With sensitivity and compassion, Mira T. Lee’s debut novel explores the enduring bond of family, the joy and sorrow shared between lovers, the challenges that plague immigrants, and a woman’s perplexing mental illness. Chinese-American Lucia Bok and her husband, Yonah, a one-armed Russian-Israeli man, are enjoying their blissful life together in New York City. That is until a relapse of Lucia’s chronic mental illness shatters everything. Although joined in their love for Lucia, carefree Yonah and Lucia’s distressed, sensible sister, Miranda, disagree about her treatment. But when Lucia, always impetuous and venturesome, refuses help and decides she wants to have a baby, she flees her family and begins a new life with an Ecuadorian man named Manny, all the while continuing to battle the voices raging inside her mind.

Narrated from different perspectives, Lee’s eloquent writing captures the unique, fully developed voice of each leading character. Lucia’s sections, laden with transparent and visceral emotion that challenges the stigma around mental illness, are particularly absorbing. With steady pacing that conveys a lifetime of compellingly believable relationships, Lee has tapped into the essence of humanity. An exceptional debut, Everything Here is Beautiful inspires readers to embrace differences.