BookBrowse Reviews Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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Following the Padavano family through 30 years of ups and downs, Hello Beautiful shows how powerful love can be - when we choose to let ourselves receive it.

Ann Napolitano's much-anticipated Hello Beautiful pulls the reader into a warm, loving familial atmosphere in what has been described as an homage to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Sweeping and vast, it follows the Padavano family from the 1980s up until 2008, cataloging their attempts to grow, change, forgive and find love within the bounds of their very tight-knit group. Switching between points of view, Hello Beautiful illustrates the complicated inner lives of the characters and reveals the dimension and depth that operate at the core of their arguments, rifts, broken hearts and battles for forgiveness. At the center are the relationships between sisters Julia, Sylvie, Cecelia and Emeline as they grapple with William, a strange newcomer to the family. He brings a foreign introspection into their world, imposing on them the same questions that have tormented him his entire life: "What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Who am I?"

William Waters grew up in a house haunted by loss under the impassive eye of two heartbroken, apathetic parents. As a respite from loneliness, he turned to basketball and cultivated a deep, lifelong passion for it. But the gentle thrum of the ball hitting the floor and its swish through the net are never enough to heal what is broken. Until he meets Julia Padavano. In college, when William is at his most adrift and Julia at her most focused, they fall hard and fast for one another. Their union introduces William to Julia's three wild sisters, her frenetic mother Rose and her Walt Whitman-obsessed father Charlie. Like driftwood caught in a powerful ocean swell, William lets himself be overtaken by a warm family the likes of which he has never known possible. But he is hiding a history of darkness and tragedy, one that Julia finds herself unprepared to tackle. Over the course of thirty years, switching primarily between William, Julia and Sylvie's perspectives, each character struggles to find happiness while trying to accept the happiness of others - even when it's at their expense.

Clocking in at nearly 400 pages, Hello Beautiful shows how family and relationships change over time, and what the passage of time does to the potency of wounds. It can be hard to acclimate oneself to the pace. Sometimes it takes as few as eight pages to cover 13 years, elsewhere a period of three months spans nearly 100 pages. It is character-driven, and as time oscillates between flying and crawling; it is helpful to remember that the pace adheres to the characters' lives and the sense of urgency depends on what is happening to them. A time of calm domesticity may only need a dozen pages, while reunions, betrayals, medical misfortunes and broken hearts may necessitate several times more.

It's easy to see the parallels to Little Women. The Padavano sisters overtly liken themselves to the March sisters. When they're struggling, they express it in a simple declaration: "I'm Beth today." Clearly inspired by Alcott's representation of familial love, Hello Beautiful moves beyond blood ties and uplifts not only the bonds between family members, but between those we choose to make family. William, by no fault of his own, is a fractured man. His cold childhood translated into an adulthood rife with low self-esteem and an inability to communicate, or even acknowledge, his own wants and needs. The novel is as much his story as it is the Padavanos', and we watch William find ways, through basketball and love, to grasp hold of the people who care about him, oftentimes by choosing himself over others - a sacrifice Napolitano paints as noble.

Hello Beautiful also transcends its homage to Alcott through its realism. Each character has virtues: Sylvie, the bookworm romantic with her head screwed on straight; Julia, the planner obsessed with finding and fixing all flaws; Cecelia, the sentimental artist; and Emeline, the nurturing caregiver. Yet, most importantly, they have major flaws. They run from challenges. They hurt easily and hold grudges. They are emotional, they are thrown into irrational decisions seemingly at a whim. They have egos and tempers. But at the forefront of all the conflict is the desire for forgiveness: to receive it, and to dole it out. That, and the desire for love.

This review first ran in the May 17, 2023 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

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