Hello Beautiful

When I finished this book, I put it down and ugly cried for about 20 minutes. It is a beautiful portrait of love and loss within a family I came to love, warts and all.

The characters were so nuanced and realistic I felt their emotions right alongside them. Loosely (and deftly) based on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a book that will live in my heart for a long, long time. 

I always wanted a sister. Maybe that’s why I loved Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful, a novel that dives deep into the complicated relationships among four sisters.

There is much sorrow and loss in this novel, and I admire how Napolitano creates powerful emotional resonance without crossing the line into sentimentality. If there’s a predominant theme, I would say it’s forgiveness. I shed tears of recognition—these characters’ loves and losses and their deceits and mistakes seem all too familiar even though their experiences may not be mine or yours. Napolitano’s characters resonate with love in all its messiness and complexity.

When William Waters meets Julia Padavano, he falls in love with the entire Padavano family, and so did I. Napolitano reportedly took inspiration from Little Women for this book about four sisters in Chicago, and as a reader with no sisters and only two boring brothers, I was fully along for the ride. 

Napolitano, who also wrote the heartbreaking Dear Edward, writes lyrically about love and loss, hurt and forgiveness. In rotating perspectives, we follow William, Julia, her sister Sylvie, and William’s daughter Alice as their bonds deepen, break, and tentatively stitch together again.

If you love family stories… show more.

Hello, Beautiful had a visceral impact on me because it explores a painful situation I’m facing right now—family estrangement. Seeing love come between two sisters who were exceptionally close as children made my heart ache for my alienated sister.

From the beginning of this eloquent narrative, I was drawn to the complex characters, the vivid setting, and the immersive plot. Often compared to Little Women because of its focus on the inextricable bonds between sisters, this is also a sweeping family narrative about love and loss, as well as rejection and regret.

This is a novel that will echo in… show more.

Hello Beautiful explores intergenerational family and family connections in all its messiness and love.

The book primarily follows five characters—four of them sisters, and all of them compelling. There are no bad guys, just people who love each other but struggle to find where they belong. And that sometimes means hurting each other. The author writes lovely passages, but even better, she writes passages that delve into the very souls of the characters.

Though all the characters are special, everyone in my book group was in love (there’s that word again!) with Sylvie. Sylvie is the kind of intuitive, generous… show more.

Hello Beautiful is the artfully crafted story of complex multi-generational familial and romantic relationships, told from the perspectives of multiple characters.

This structure highlights the book’s message that a change in perspective is often necessary to unravel the difficult truths of our own stories. The Chicagoland setting was a bonus for me.

Have you ever read a book you couldn’t finish fast enough but also were desperate to never finish? That’s what this one was like for me. I savored every single sentence.

A beautiful homage to Little Women (that alone meant I couldn’t resist!), it’s the story of a Chicago family, tight as can be, who splinter following a seeming betrayal within their ranks. What happens next is a long-stretching unfolding of highs and lows, as each character discovers their identity, mends relationships, and realizes the true power of familial bonds.

In a word, this book is simply stunning. Do yourself… show more.

An early favorite for my top book of 2023 is Napolitano’s latest, set almost entirely in and around Chicago. Sports fans will particularly enjoy a narrative thread that tracks a basketball player turned trainer from Northwestern to the United Center, but the entire book is steeped in the city, from its murals and libraries to its gentrifying neighborhoods. As a former resident of Evanston, I love it when someone gets the details right. Exquisite and perfectly structured, you’ll miss Napolitano’s vibrant Windy City family drama long after it’s over.