All Your Perfects

Colleen Hoover’s 2018 novel All Your Perfects depicts a marriage in crisis as a result of infertility and infidelity. Hoover is known for her contemporary romance and young adult novels, as well as psychological thrillers. All Your Perfects appeared on both the New York Times Bestseller list and USA Today’s Best Selling Books list. The novel alternates between scenes set “Then” (when couple Quinn and Graham are just beginning their relationship) and “Now” (seven years later, when their marriage has been tested by infertility). The novel is a romance novel, but subverts many genre expectations by focusing on an established relationship in crisis.

Content Warning: All Your Perfects includes emotionally fraught discussion of infertility (i.e., how cultural biases about fertility affect a person’s self-esteem), an instance of self-harm, and a miscarriage.

Plot Summary

All Your Perfects opens seven years in the past, when Quinn discovers her fiancé, Ethan, sleeping with another woman. She receives this news from the woman’s boyfriend, Graham, with whom she quickly hits it off. Quinn and Graham almost engage in rebound sex, but are too emotionally affected by their partners’ cheating. Graham leaves Quinn his phone number, but she never calls it.