At first, I thought this was going to be an immigrant novel, and it kind of is, but that's more of a background element. Lucy/Lucia moves with her single Chinese pregnant mother to the United States as a young girl. But the story quickly jumps to her adolescence and her first mental disorders surfacing and requiring hospitalization. Her sister tries to help, and the sister relationship is a thread throughout the novel. What if your sister was the only person who knew your medical secrets but lives far away with her own life?

I feel like the author did an interesting thing here. The point of view changes so sometimes the pov is from Lucia, sometimes when she is lucid, but also when she isn't. And the moments that really stuck out to me were those where I was seeing the world from her perspective and her decisions seemed valid, and then it switches to an outsider and you realize that she is acting paranoid, delusional, potentially harmful to her child. It was quite the reminder that for a person suffering from mental illness, it's not that easy for them to see what others see, or to fully understand they need help or medication. I thought it was very effective.

Lucy's second husband is Manny, an undocumented Ecuadorian, and along the way I realized that there are no white people in this novel, pretty awesome. Lucy had spent time in Latin America and at one point they move back there with their child, and I thought that was an unfairly challenging environment for her mental health but adds another interesting twist to the story.

What stood out for me was the prose, I really enjoyed Lee's lyrical writing style. Everything else was just okay. The development, plot, arc... I thought would have benefited from a different structure and execution.

Family is a beautiful and complicated tangle. It is especially knotty for Miranda and Lucia. Their bond is strong, but it is tested severely. The death of their mother marks the beginning of the most difficult test of their relationship. Lucia begins to hear voices. As she unravels, so do they. The novel follows the sisters' trials and triumphs in love and careers and life. The men they love and who love them are fully developed characters who add tremendously to the novel.
What I loved most in the story, was also what I found the most painful. Miranda's steadfastness, her drive to help Lucia was gorgeous and heartbreaking. Everything Here is Beautiful was not always easy to read, but it was worth the effort.

This book is a truly heartbreaking, realistic, and raw look at the effect mental illness can have on a family. The author pulls no punches in her descriptions of how mental illness takes hold of someone bright and beautiful and hopeful and shreds her. The multiple voices that tell the story offer honest and varied responses to the way each life is irrevocably altered by the choices the main character makes. A brave and unflinching book.