Hello Beautiful
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
-
-
4.3 • 168 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLD WIDE
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND 100th OPRAH WINFREY BOOK CLUB PICK
'Radiant and brilliantly crafted' New York Times
-----
Best friends and sisters, the four Padavano girls bring loving chaos to their close-knit Italian American neighbourhood. William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So, when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano, it's as if the world has lit up around him.
With Julia comes her family: Sylvie, the family's dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. But when darkness from William's past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante. The result is a catastrophic rift that leaves the family inhabiting two sides of a fault line.
Can they find their way back to each other? Can love make a broken family whole?
-----
'Beautiful, perceptive, wistful. I loved it'
Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
'Ann Napolitano's writing is astonishing'
Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups
'Another tender tearjerker... She helps us see ourselves - and each other - whole'
Washington Post
'Napolitano's homage to Little Women, set in late-20th century Chicago, will prompt you to slow down as you read, never wanting the book to end'
Oprah Quarterly
'A moving, tender family epic' Pandora Sykes
Instant New York Times bestseller, July 2023
100th Oprah Winfrey Book Club pick, March 2023
Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, 2024
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Napolitano (Dear Edward) explores the meaning of love and family with this striking story of four Chicago sisters and the young man who enters their lives. William Waters, a basketball player from outside Boston, enrolls at Northwestern in 1978 on an athletic scholarship. After he starts dating fellow student Julia Padavano, he's embraced by Julia's three younger sisters—Sylvie, a romantic searching for a great love affair; Cecelia, an aspiring artist; and Cecelia's earnest and quiet twin, Emeline—and is delighted to find a loving and loud family so different from his own, his parents having grown taciturn after his older sister's death years before. William and Julia marry, while the unmarried Cecelia gets pregnant at 17, Sylvie presses on with a job at a library, and Emeline works at a daycare where she fosters a crush on a coworker. After one character attempts suicide, the bonds of the expanding family are tested, and the Padavano women reexamine the limits of how much they're willing to sacrifice. The author breathes great life into her characters, and brings insight into their quiet moments as they gradually come into their own. This will move readers.
Customer Reviews
Hello Beautiful
Great read !
Fabulous book. Hard to put down. Loved the characters…very well written.
Excellent
Meh
3 stars
The author is American: MFA from NYU, then teacher of fiction writing at Brooklyn College and NYU. Her third novel, Dear Edward (2020), was praised by the critics and quickly hit the bestseller lists. This, the follow-up, was listed as one of the most anticipated books of 2023 by Elle, Books-A-Million, Today, The Week, Apartment Therapy, Goodreads, Lit Hub, Oprah and more.
It’s a family saga spanning four decades starting in the late 1970s. Soon after William Waters was born in Boston, his 3 year old sister died. His parents were devastated. Deprived of their love, he sought solace in basketball, acquired the skills and had a growth spurt to 6 feet 7, which leads to a sports scholarship to Northwestern in Chicago. There he meets Julia, the eldest of four daughters in a tight-knit, working class Italo-American family. Shades of Little Women according to the girls. For me, not so much. Our boy suffers a career ending basketball injury, but marries Julia and they have a child. Married life is not what either expected. Charlie the family patriarch dies. One of the younger girls, who are twins, becomes a single mother. Rose the matriarch moves to Florida. William’s mental health is shaky. Julia moves away and takes daughter Alice with her. Our boy hooks up with the second sister Sylvie. Yada, yada.
The narrative unfolds in alternating chapters through the eyes of William, Julia, and Sylvie. The mood is sombre predominantly. Miscommunication is a major theme. There’s a family reunion at the end.
Ms N writes well but this felt to me like a story starting in the late 1940s/early 1950s, rather than the stated time frame. Indeed, the author inserts references to contemporary fashion or events periodically to remind readers, and possibly herself, that it’s not. Neither is it Little Women. The characters in that were more likeable, and there was no basketball.