excerpt: everyone is beautiful

Here’s the excerpt my great publicist at Random House included with Everyone Is Beautiful when she mailed it out to reviewers this week:

“There is no better people-watching than at the airport: The whole world packed into such a tight space, moving fast with all their essentials in their rolling bags. And what caught my attention, as I took a few breaths and took in the crowds, were all the imperfections. Everybody had them. Every single person that walked past me had some kind of flaw. Bushy eyebrows, moles, flared nostirls, crooked teeth, crow’s feet, hunched backs, dowager humps, double chins, floppy earlobes, nose hairs, pot bellies, scars, nicotine stains, upper arm fat, trick knees, saddle bags, collapsed arches, bruises, warts, puffy eyes, pimples. Nobody was perfect. Not even close. And everybody had wrinkles from smiling and squinting and craning their necks. Everybody had marks on their bodies from years of living–a trail of life left on them, evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights and practical jokes and heartbreaks that had made them who they were. In that moment, I suddenly loved us all the more for our flaws, for being broken and human, for being embarrassed and lonely, for being hopeful or tired or disappointed or sick or brave or angry. For being who we were, for making the world interesting. It was a good reminder that the human condition is imperfection. And that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

(Image from Square America)