Following on the heels of her bestselling third novel, Dear Edward (a 10-episode adaptation was just lately launched on Apple TV+), Ann Napolitano provides a energetic homage to Little Women with Hello Beautiful. Chronicling the lives of the 4 Chicago-based Padavano sisters and one of their suitors, this sprawling drama stretches from 1960 by means of 2008, tracing the arc of their household dynamics, together with the ties that without end bind them in addition to circumstances and betrayals that tear them aside. Like Little Women, Hello Beautiful additionally thoughtfully examines the comforts and challenges of house life, work and romantic love, however with a distinctly fashionable perspective.
The novel begins with William Waters, whose life has been outlined by the loss of life of his 3-year-old sister simply days after his beginning. The tragedy casts a everlasting pall over his mother and father’ days, they usually ignore William thereafter—to a maybe unbelievable diploma. As William realizes, “They’d only ever had one child, and it wasn’t him.” Basketball turns into his major supply of stability, and he leaves his suburban Boston house after incomes a basketball scholarship to Northwestern University. At faculty, he meets confident, decided Julia Padavano, who decides throughout their first dialog that he’s the one for her.
The two marry, and slowly however certainly, William turns into half of the Padavano clan, which additionally contains long-suffering mom Rose, goodhearted father Charlie and Julia’s three sisters: creative Cecelia and nurturing Emeline, who’re twins, and literary Sylvie, who kisses boys within the library stacks whereas ready for a “once-in-a-century love affair.” Julia repeatedly warns Sylvie about her idealism: “The kind of love you’re looking for is made up,” she says. “The idea of love in those books—Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina—is that it’s a force that obliterates you. They’re all tragedies, Sylvie. Think about it; those novels all end with despair, or death.”
Julia’s prophecy proves to be apt, with slow-simmering occasions reaching a stunning end result as a benign second turns “dangerous, like a shining dagger.” The household is torn aside in dramatic vogue, even if the 4 sisters “had beat with one heart for most of their lives.”
As Napolitano switches narrators all through the guide, readers turn into absolutely enmeshed within the sprawling lives of her characters, watching them change and develop over a long time. They’re a likable bunch, and as with actual family and friends, readers might typically wish to intervene, or a minimum of provide some recommendation, as they make life-altering selections. Napolitano goes to nice lengths to elucidate and justify her characters’ selections—at instances, on the expense of motion and dialogue. Still, William and the Padavano sisters stay memorable, and Napolitano’s sharp plotting gives a gripping conclusion that radiates love and kindness, the kind you would like that every one feuding households may discover their strategy to.
This bighearted home novel reaches comforting highs and despairing lows as Napolitano examines the various ways in which households pull one another collectively and aside.
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