ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a tes­ta­ment to the grace, faith, and aplomb of my edi­tor, Sarah Can­tin, that when I told her I want­ed to do some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent that hinged on the read­er believ­ing a woman had been mar­ried sev­en times, she said, “Go for it.” With­in the safe­ty of that trust, I felt free to cre­ate Eve­lyn Hugo. Sarah, it is with my most sin­cere thanks that I acknowl­edge how lucky I am to have you as my edi­tor.

Big, big thanks must also go to Car­ly Wat­ters for all that she has done for my career. I feel for­tu­nate to con­tin­ue work­ing with you on so many books togeth­er.

To my incom­pa­ra­ble rep team: You all are so good at your jobs and seem to do them with such pas­sion that I feel as if I’m armed at all sides. There­sa Park, thank you for com­ing aboard and hit­ting the ground run­ning with a strength and ele­gance that is tru­ly unmatched. With you at the helm, I feel incred­i­bly con­fi­dent I can reach new heights. Brad Mendel­sohn, thank you for run­ning the show with such a strong belief in me and for deal­ing with the intri­cate details of my neu­ro­sis with such warmth. Sylvie Rabineau and Jill Gillett, your intel­li­gence and skill are per­haps only out­shone by your com­pas­sion.

To Ash­ley Kruythoff, Krista Shipp, Abi­gail Koons, Andrea Mai, Emi­ly Sweet, Alex Greene, Blair Wil­son, Vanes­sa Mar­tinez, and every­one else at WME, Cir­cle of Con­fu­sion, and Park Lit­er­ary & Media, I am hon­est­ly over­whelmed at how seam­less­ly you all con­sis­tent­ly deliv­er excel­lence. Spe­cial thanks for Vanes­sa para el español. Me sal­vaste la vida.

To Judith, Peter, Tory, Hillary, Albert, and every­one else at Atria who works to help my books make their way in the world, I thank you deeply.

To Crys­tal, Janay, Robert, and the rest of the BookSparks team, you are unstop­pable, bril­liant pub­lic­i­ty machines and won­der­ful humans. One thou­sand prayer hands emo­jis to you and all that you do.

To all the friends who have shown up time and time again, to hear me read, to buy my books, to rec­om­mend my work to oth­er peo­ple, and to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly put my books at the front of the store, I am for­ev­er grate­ful. To Kate, Court­ney, Julia, and Monique, thank you for help­ing me write about peo­ple dif­fer­ent from myself. It is a tall order that I take on humbly and it helps so much to have you by my side.

To the book blog­gers who write and tweet and snap pho­tos all in the effort of telling peo­ple about my work, you are the rea­son I can con­tin­ue to do what I do. And I have to give it up to Natasha Minoso and Vil­ma Gon­za­lez for just straight killin’ it.

To the Reid and Hanes fam­i­lies, thank you for sup­port­ing me, for cheer­ing the loud­est, and for always being there when I need you.

To my moth­er, Mindy, thank you for being proud of this book and always so eager to read any­thing I write.

To my broth­er, Jake, thank you for see­ing me the way I want to be seen, for under­stand­ing what I’m try­ing to do at such a deep lev­el, and for keep­ing me sane.

To the one and only Alex Jenk­ins Reid: Thank you for under­stand­ing why this book was so impor­tant to me and for being so into it. But more impor­tant, thank you for being the kind of man who encour­ages me to shout loud­er, dream big­ger, and take less shit. Thank you for nev­er mak­ing me feel as if I should make myself small­er to make any­one else feel bet­ter. It brings me an absolute­ly unpar­al­leled amount of pride and joy to know that our daugh­ter is grow­ing up with a father who will stick by her side no mat­ter who she is, who will show her how she should expect to be treat­ed by mod­el­ing it for her. Eve­lyn did not have that. I did not have that. But she will. Because of you.

And last­ly, to my baby girl. You were tee­ny tee­ny tiny—I believe the size of half the peri­od on the end of this sentence—when I start­ed writ­ing this book. And when I fin­ished it, you were mere days away from mak­ing your entrance. You were with me every step of the way.