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It’s Like ‘Little Women’ — but With Basketball

In “Hello Beautiful,” Ann Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic story of four sisters.

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• Published March 11, 2023 Updated Nov. 1, 2023
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HELLO BEAUTIFUL, by Ann Napolitano

“It is your God-given right as an American fiction writer,” Ursula K. Le Guin once said, to change point of view. But “you need to know that you’re doing it,” she warned, and “some American fiction writers don’t.”

Ann Napolitano certainly does. Taken together, her four novels, published over a span of nearly two decades, might be read as a career-long experiment in point of view. Each book fits the perspectives of its vibrant characters to the moral arcs of their stories in new and beguiling ways.

Napolitano’s debut novel, “ Within Arm’s Reach ,” included no fewer than six first-person points of view across three generations of an Irish Catholic family, each rendered in present tense yet with minute differences of register and tone. She followed up with “A Good Hard Look,” which enlisted Flannery O’Connor as part of a rich ensemble cast rendered in a close third person that perfectly suits the book’s themes of estrangement and desire.

Napolitano’s blockbuster third novel, “ Dear Edward ,” took more technical risks with point of view. One timeline roams through the cabin of an airplane in a daringly head-hopping third person as the doomed jet hurtles toward its fate. The relentless switches in perspective channel the unfolding catastrophe — until finally the narrative mirror breaks, and “the cockpit voice recorder stops” along with the little world the author has built inside the fuselage. The second timeline features the single point of view of Edward, the crash’s sole survivor, who floats in an eerie present tense between memory and oblivion.

There is a silent alchemy to point of view. The unsettling omniscience at the opening of Celeste Ng’s “ Little Fires Everywhere ,” the sublime rupture of perspective delivered a third of the way through Sarah Waters’s “ Fingersmith ”: In the hands of a great novelist, point of view can transport us from an eagle’s eye to a child’s mind to a victim’s dying thoughts in a flash.

“Hello Beautiful,” Napolitano’s radiant and brilliantly crafted new novel, begins in 1960 with the birth of a boy — though with an immediately tragic twist that is also a negation: “For the first six days of William Waters’s life, he was not an only child.” Though William himself won’t come to understand its implications for many years, the childhood death of his older sister will go on to shape his life in fundamental ways. His relationship with his shattered parents is cold and distant; he’s stuck with a mother who scarcely listens when he speaks, and a heartbreakingly remote father (“With his daughter gone, the man’s face never opened again”). By the time William leaves for college, he understands “that they’d only ever had one child, and it wasn’t him.”

William finds refuge and kin in basketball. First spotted by a gym teacher in fifth grade, and talented (and tall) enough by his freshman year to start for the varsity team, he eventually wins a scholarship to Northwestern University, and goes on to spend the rest of his life in Chicago — though “Hello Beautiful” isn’t a typical sports novel, tracing the predictable arc of an elite athlete’s triumph, downfall and redemption. William’s basketball career is sidetracked by mediocrity, failure and devastating injury, but it’s also buoyed by lifelong camaraderie with teammates who will help sustain him through his most difficult moments.

William’s fortunes turn for the better with his marriage to Julia, eldest of the four Padavano sisters, whose warm family offers him the kind of raucous and love-filled life his aloof parents could never provide. At the same time, Julia, a perfectionist with a 10-year plan, has certain expectations for William (perhaps he’ll be a writer, perhaps a professor) that set him up for another kind of failure.

At first all seems well, thanks in no small part to the warmhearted Sylvie, Julia’s bookishly romantic sister, who envisions herself as the impassioned heroine of a 19th-century novel and finds a model for later maturity in Walt Whitman’s “different attempts at excellence and beauty as he aged and loved and reconsidered everything.”

In a marvelous early scene, Julia and her sisters argue over their parallels to the fictional March girls in “Little Women.” As the eldest and most practical, Julia seems the logical Meg, though she and Sylvie both claim themselves as “the feisty Jo, and they were both right.” This is a clear sign of trouble, as is the scene’s hint of tragedy to come: “Whenever any of the sisters was sick or forlorn, she’d declare herself Beth. One of us will be the first to die , they would take turns telling one another, and all four girls shuddered at the thought.”

The italicized truism does its work, darkening the sisters’ youthful exuberance with misfortunes on the novel’s horizons both near and distant: an attempted suicide, alienation and betrayal, divorce, disease, early death. These are recurring themes in Napolitano’s work, which resists the easy satisfactions of the sentimental and never settles for simple answers to emotional predicaments faced by her characters.

Such quandaries help frame the book’s elegant structure. Chapters move along in the braided perspectives of William, Julia and Sylvie in an unvarying pattern that breaks only at the novel’s midpoint, as William and Julia’s marriage falls apart. Julia twice leaves us for seven chapters at a time, during her self-imposed exile from the Chicago Padavanos for a new life and successful career in New York with Alice, the daughter she shares with William.

Though only a handful of chapters come from Alice’s point of view, the first lands like an emotional grenade, beginning with a brutal if necessary fable about her origins and estrangement from her father — a lie Julia will repeat throughout her childhood. Upon hearing it for the first time, the little girl, only 5, reacts with the kind of understated stolidity she has inherited from William: “Alice put down her spoon and said, ‘Oh.’”

Though William gets the plurality of chapters, he is the haziest character of the bunch, adept in the game of emotional distancing taught him by his parents. At times, like his best friend and former teammate Kent, you want to shake the guy by the shoulders and show him everything he has going for him. “You can’t hide love,” Kent warns; William will learn this lesson too slowly. By the end of the novel (no spoilers), William is allowed to break through the emotional chrysalis Napolitano has created for him, finding a potential source of resilience in the very tragedies that have narrowed his life.

In a poignant final scene, he observes that sometimes we need a change in perspective to show us the difficult truths of our own stories — and to help us understand the limits of our own outlooks and angles on the world. Here, just as the novel resolves its key emotional conflict, Napolitano comments slyly on the affective capacity of shifting point of view.

Sometimes, William Waters says, “we need another pair of eyes.”

Bruce Holsinger teaches at the University of Virginia. His most recent novel is “The Displacements.”

HELLO BEAUTIFUL | By Ann Napolitano | 400 pp. | The Dial Press | $28

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Oprah’s pick, ‘Hello Beautiful,’ is a tender tearjerker

It’s easy to see why ann napolitano’s novel was chosen: like her previous book, “dear edward,” this one chronicles life’s highs and lows with precision.

In her piercingly tender new novel, “ Hello Beautiful , ” best-selling author Ann Napolitano catalogues the multitudes of love and hurt that families contain, and lays bare their powers to both damage and heal. If that description echoes the poetry of Walt Whitman, whose work Napolitano quotes in her epigraph, it also reflects her own expansive literary spirit — a bracing yet restorative sensibility that managed to render cathartic the seemingly unbearable pain embedded in her previous book, “ Dear Edward . ” Now being dramatized on Apple TV Plus, that story recounts the physical and psychological recovery of the 12-year-old title character who boards a jetliner with his family and becomes the flight’s sole survivor.

In ‘Dear Edward,’ the world’s most famous orphan finds something to live for

Like its predecessor, “Hello Beautiful” will make you weep buckets because you come to care so deeply about the characters and their fates. At its center is another ailing soul, the emotionally hobbled William Waters. He grows up with no memory of his sister, Caroline, a lovable redhead who died at age 3 when he was a mere 6 days old. Her absence engulfs his early years, her death having left his parents emotionally frozen and unable, or unwilling, to forge even a cursory connection with their remaining child.

Overlooked and neglected at home, William’s only solace becomes his love of basketball. The sole place he feels comfortable is a court with a hoop, and his social contacts are mostly limited to his school teammates, who watch with amazement as he reaches the towering height of 6-foot-7. When the sports scholarship he earns to Northwestern University allows him to leave his lonely home for the Chicago area, his parents bid him farewell, seeming not to care whether they ever see him again.

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He arrives on campus insecure, awkward and lost. He’s as little able to comprehend the inner hollowness and guilt he has struggled with for as long as he can remember as he is to imagine a future beyond the basketball court. For a time, his spot on the varsity team’s starting lineup keeps him afloat. So does a fiancee who tows him along without his realizing that their destinations aren’t necessarily compatible. But by the time a severe knee injury sidelines him, he has already begun to sink. After playing the game he knew by the rules and routines that life had presented him, he finds that he’s drowning. There is no game left for him to play, no purpose in trying to pivot on his wounded knee and search for something else.

Napolitano charts his descent with aching precision. She also puts in place two disparate teams to help him: a stolid group of basketball jocks, captained by Kent and Arash, who become his true brothers; and the quirky Padavano sisters, who grow into his family.

He meets Julia, the oldest sister, in a college history class, and she soon introduces him to her three siblings. At first, he finds them indistinguishable, each sporting the same unruly curly hair, and in person, as in old photos, looking “deeply similar, like they were four different versions of the same person.”

Only on closer acquaintance does William begin to discern their differences. Charming and energetic, Julia is also bossy, controlling and ambitious. Sylvie is younger than Julia by 10 months and is her closest confidante, but she is contrastingly soft-spoken, bookish (she works at the local library to put herself through college) and romantic, dreaming of a perfect soul mate even as she makes out with random boys in the library stacks. The two youngest siblings are decidedly nonidentical twins: Cecilia, a budding artist and mural painter who becomes a single mother at 17, and the nurturing Emeline, who “kept her hands free in order to be helpful or to pick up and soothe a neighborhood child.”

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Over the course of three decades, the siblings will mature and change, and their seemingly solid sisterhood will be repeatedly challenged. Yet they always remain recognizable, their flaws and limits as deeply rooted as their capacity for kindness and compassion. Even so, plot coincidences can pile up along the way, and the Padavanos themselves comment on the soap-opera twists that discomfort and reconfigure their relationships. Countering that, Napolitano incorporates knowledgeable interludes about basketball history and strategy throughout her novel.

Napolitano emphasizes the sisters’ fondness for likening themselves to the four heroines of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women . ” But the siblings put me more in mind of the unconventional families Anne Tyler often portrays in her novels. Like Tyler’s characters, who can sometimes hardly bear to go beyond the comfort zone of their Baltimore neighborhood, the Padavanos stay mostly in Pilsen, their beloved working-class corner of Chicago. Both novelists also share a fondness for oddball details, such as mother Rose Padavano’s idiosyncratic gardening gear, which consists of a baseball catcher’s uniform and a flamboyant sombrero. Whitman’s encompassing vision of life and death also wafts through the novel, courtesy of favorite lines quoted by Rose’s ne’er-do-well husband, Charlie.

But Napolitano’s voice is her own. Like her deeply felt characters, she compels us to contemplate the complex tapestry of family love that can, despite grief and loss, still knit us together. She helps us see ourselves — and each other — whole.

Diane Cole is the author of the memoir “ After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges .”

Hello Beautiful

By Ann Napolitano

Dial. 400 pp. $28

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Ann Napolitano on her new novel 'Hello Beautiful'

Scott Simon

Lennon Sherburne

Estrangement and reconciliation in an Italian-American family: Ann Napolitano's new novel, "Hello Beautiful," is about loving each other just as we are. NPR's Scott Simon talks to her about it.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

William Waters finds a missing piece of life when he meets Julia Padavano in college and marries into a family of four sisters. He'd grown up feeling that his parents had only one child, and, in Ann Napolitano's memorable phrase, it wasn't him. The embrace of sisters, often comforting, sometimes stifling, forgiving, forgetting and going on is at the heart of her new novel, "Hello Beautiful." Ann Napolitano, author of the bestseller "Dear Edward," which is now an Apple Plus series, joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

ANN NAPOLITANO: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: Tell us about William. He has to grow up with a darkness, doesn't he?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. His 3-year-old sister dies the same week that he is born. And his parents are so heartbroken that when they look at him, they only feel their own pain, so they really stop looking at him. And he has very little attention and love for the rest of his childhood.

SIMON: He does eventually find achievement and recognition in basketball. He winds up going to Northwestern, where he meets Julia. I will note the Wildcats are better than usual this year, but they're not a traditional basketball powerhouse. Let's put it that way. Does knowing Julia give him another kind of recognition too?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. She is a powerful, ambitious, self-directed, vibrant young woman, and she sort of takes him in hand and tells him what to do because she has strong aspirations for her own life. She has an idea of the husband that she wants to be married to. And he fits the mold, and he's also very moldable. And he's very happy to be told what to do, so it works out well initially for both of them.

SIMON: And tell us about her sisters. You have Sylvie and then the twins, Cecelia and Emeline.

NAPOLITANO: Yes. So Sylvie is only 10 months younger than Julia, and she is a voracious reader, and she works in the local library, putting herself through college. And she is a dreamer. She has this dream that she's going to find the great love affair, a sort of once-in-a-generation love story. And that is her dream. And Emeline and Cecelia are a little bit younger, and they are twins. And Cecelia is an artist, and Emeline is a nurturer. She takes care of everybody.

SIMON: How challenging is it to write four characters who appear again and again and make them different enough to tell apart, but also enough alike to be sisters?

NAPOLITANO: Well, that's part of what fascinates me about sisters. When I was growing up, my best friend, Leah (ph) - her mother had six sisters that would come in and out of the house all the time, and they had slightly different versions of the same face, and they seemed more themselves when they're in the same room together than they did when they were separated. And that was completely fascinating to me. So it was really, like, an exciting and fun challenge to create sisters who were that close but also very strongly rooted in their own selves. I think that's a challenging relationship because you're so close and so strong-willed and so different, but it can be, like, the deepest and most rewarding of relationships, you know, unless you're challenged, which unfortunately - or fortunately - the sisters are challenged.

SIMON: And it's perfectly OK if readers detect a debt to "Little Women" in your novel.

NAPOLITANO: It is. I actually didn't intend that. It was only once I'd created - or met - the sisters, and they were having a conversation in the scene that I was writing about which March sister they were most like. And I was like, oh, yes, of course. Like, it's four sisters, just like the March girls. And Laurie in "Little Women" is a character from the outside who peers into the March family window and wants to be in there. And so does William for the Padavano sisters.

SIMON: Yeah. William and Julia, without giving away too much of the story, have a daughter, Alice, and then a darkness begins to envelop William. Or has it always been there?

NAPOLITANO: I think it had always been there. I think basketball kept it at bay. And he, you know, reaches the end of his basketball career, and it sort of begins to sink him. And he enters adulthood with its, you know, myriad responsibilities and calls upon him to sort of stand up straighter. And he finds that he's unable to.

SIMON: Yeah. How does William begin to treat his daughter?

NAPOLITANO: I think he has struggles to look at his daughter, in a similar way that his parents struggled to look at him. I think often the sort of traumas that afflict us in our youth end up playing out in various ways as we grow up, even though it's the last thing that we want to have happen. And William wants nothing but the best for his daughter, but he has a lot of fear at the same time.

SIMON: Do we inherit only the good stuff?

NAPOLITANO: No.

SIMON: Yeah.

NAPOLITANO: Unfortunately not. I think the fault lines that run through our parents often run into us, even if we weren't alive when those fault lines were created. And they become part of our DNA and our behaviors. Even if we're trying as hard as we can to run away from them, they are, in that instance, still shaping our lives. The same thing happens with the Padavano family. Rose, the mother of the four girls, got pregnant before she was married, which ended up being, you know, a wonderful thing for their family, but she does not want that for her girls. And she ends up, you know, pushing them almost to the brink. So what she sees as her failures she almost makes happen again in the next generation too.

SIMON: How much of the - may I ask? - family dynamics do you plot out, say, on index cards, and how much come to you in the process of writing?

NAPOLITANO: The first year, while I'm thinking about the book, I don't let myself write, and I only think and plan and research and take notes. But still, there's probably only about five things that I know are going to happen when I start writing the book. The rest of it, I discover.

SIMON: Help us understand what that feels like.

NAPOLITANO: Well, to me, it's kind of like being a reader. It is an act of discovery. When the book starts, William is this lonely, sad, brokenhearted little boy. And I want to find out if he can be OK after the childhood that he had. And I really wasn't sure. So I had to walk through line after line, scene after scene, interaction after interaction and be like, is this true? Like, is this how it would feel? And slowly that charts his course through the story and through the novel. And I'm right there with him, hoping that we're going to get to a place where he's all right but not sure whether that is going to be true or not. And that's part of the tension for me and keeps me writing and keeps me anxious.

SIMON: Forgive me for not knowing, but do you have sisters, brothers?

NAPOLITANO: Yeah, I have a sister, a brother and a half sister.

SIMON: No matter what issues might wind up dividing siblings, is there a - is there still a special closeness that just is in no other way emulated?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. I think because you grow up, obviously, from the very beginning and you know each other inside and out and you know all of each other's embarrassing secrets and worst moments and you know each other at each stage of your lives, there's just a - that's like a rooting system that runs all the way down into the earth. And so even if you try to walk away from each other, I think there's always that possibility and even encouragement to walk back because the roots don't go away.

SIMON: Ann Napolitano - her novel, "Hello, Beautiful" - thank you so much for being with us.

NAPOLITANO: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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Review: Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Editorial note: I received a copy of Hello Beautiful in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano is a captivating examination of family, love and forgiveness.

I feel Ann Napolitano is one of the best literary fiction writers out there today. Her novels are so moving, vivid and truly capture the essence of humanity. She writes about extremely tough subject matters in such a delicate but quite impactful way. I’m such a fan of hers, which is one reason why I selected Hello Beautifu l as a must-read book club pick for 2023 .

For instance, if you haven’t read Dear Edward (and the series is now out on Apple TV+), I highly recommend it. I was hesitant at first—reading about the sole survivor of a plane crash seemed really depressing. And it is really sad. But again, it’s handled with care and it’s very moving.

It’s interesting to think that I read Dear Edward exactly three years ago in 2020 as we were dealing with the start of a pandemic. While neither book features a pandemic, both cover broken people, heartbreaking loss and family love. These are the kind of stories that remind me you of what’s important in life.

On the surface, Hello Beautiful is a smaller scale story focusing on a close-knit group of sisters. It’s a homage to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women , yet the story very much stands on its own. There’s a lot of depth and covers a wide range of themes. I see why Oprah selected it for her 100th book club selection. This is one of those novels that is absolutely a perfect fit for book clubs.

What’s the Story About

Hello Beautiful centers around the Padavano family and specifically, on the four sisters: Julia, the go-getter of the family; Sylvie, the bookish dreamer; Cecelia, the free-spirited artist; and Emeline, the compassionate nurturer. The sisters are as close as they can be and always have each other’s backs.

Everything changes when Julia meets William Walters, a shy and broken man with a tragic past. William is immediately taken with Julia’s vibrance and is especially happy to be welcomed into a new family.

However, William’s past eventually resurfaces. And as a result, the sisters’ seemingly unbreakable bond is broken.

Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?

Four Sisters

Little Women is the gold standard for stories about sisters. Sometimes homages to literary classics miss the mark or rely too much on the original source material that they don’t feel authentic.

But in the case of Hello Beautiful , Ann Napolitano pays tribute to the classic while also ensuring the story stands on its own. The sisters within Hello Beautiful are also fans of Little Women and even compare themselves to the sisters of the story, which I thought was a nice touch.

I was so fascinated by the different dynamics of the four sisters, especially that of Julia and Sylvie. Those two characters, along with William, are the main focus of the story. If I have one criticism, it’s that I would have liked a little more from Cecelia and Emeline. While they are in the story, they do take a backseat and I think they could have been developed more.

Everything changes when William comes to the picture. Who would expect such a quiet, unassuming man to have such an impact? But he does.

William’s backstory is quite sad—he was unloved as a child. His parents failed him. They couldn’t get past their own grief of losing William’s older sister. There’s a vivid description of William as a child coughing in a closet so he wouldn’t bother his parents with an illness as he believed it would have reminded them of what they lost.

It’s so sad for a child to have to think like that and feel so alone. I couldn’t get over the cruelty of his parents and it does have such a lasting impact on him. He’s a very complex character. You’ll feel sympathetic but he also makes some choices that are quite cold. And the reason behind is apparent but it doesn’t change the outcome.

Still, William grows quite a bit in the novel and I really liked his character arc overall.

This is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time. There are certain stories that truly get to you and stay with you for a long time. It’s a beautiful story about family bond and love.

If you’re looking for a well-done literary fiction story, this is the one for you. An ideal book for book clubs as there is a ton to discuss, analyze and even debate about. All the stars for Hello Beautiful .

Check out my book club questions here .

Friday 15th of September 2023

Hello Beautiful should never have been published. The writing is the worst I can ever remember of any book I have ever read. This book would be an excellent example for anyone teaching writing of how not to write. It is all “tell” and no “show” and is so repetitious, I wonder why the author doesn’t realize that saying something once is informative, saying it 90 times is absurd. It is ridiculously predictable and the characters absurdly shallow (although Neapolitan spends a lot of time repetitively “telling” readers just how deep they are. I read this for a book club and I feel cheated of money, time and sanity.

Friday 8th of March 2024

@Jan Hale, I totally agree with you!

Judy Hubbard

Monday 15th of January 2024

I meant for not seeing any depth.

@Ben Morcos, So glad I'm not the only one. I was blaming myself for seeing any depth in it whatsoever.

Monday 23rd of October 2023

@Jan Hale (also @Becky) thank you, exactly, you nailed it. it's shocking to me that anyone didn't find this book unbelievably simple, meant for unsophisticated readers, and just plain bad.

Tuesday 6th of June 2023

I wished the scene where Sylvie kisses William had been more dramatized.

Michele Paynter

Sunday 21st of May 2023

I am absolutely in awe of Ann Napolitano's book, HELLO BEAUTIFUL. I suggested this book recently for my book club choice and I am so glad that I did. Reading this poignant story of a family torn by loss, tragedy, but also of great familial love gave me pause. Between the tears and reflections of my own family - I couldn't put the book down. I'm certain that I will reread this fabulous book as well as recommending it to other book enthusiasts. A tour de force to be sure!

Tuesday 11th of April 2023

I'm confused. I thought this was the worst book I've ever read. It wasn't fluid and left out a lot regarding the parents that raised this group. Both Rose and Williams parents were flat...........why? I had a hard time staying engaged, and felt it fell way short of the raving reviews.

@Becky, I felt the same way! Such unrealistic and downright ignorant details throughout. I may be picky, but I was so disappointed on so many levels. Really the author shows her stupidity without researching enough. Simple details like cashing an old check—it is void after six months! A professor having all kinds of clients in Manhattan—maybe an adjunct economist could but just a weirdly unbelievable detail. To top it off, not one single character was fully developed. She would give a glimpse of a seriously mentally or disfunctional person and really never delve into specifics!

Judy Ransom

@Becky, I just finished the book and felt the same way as you. After all the glowing reviews, I wondered what was wrong with me that I could barely finish it. Sort of makes me sad.

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‘Hello Beautiful’ Is New Pick at Oprah’s Book Club

BY Michael Schaub • March 13, 2023

Oprah Winfrey selected Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful  as the 100th pick for her popular book club.

Napolitano’s novel, published Tuesday by Dial Press, follows four sisters whose family is thrown into disarray after one falls in love with a man whose childhood was marked by darkness and neglect. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “Napolitano’s characters can break your heart as they work to mend their own.”

On the show, Napolitano described getting the phone call from Winfrey letting her know of the book’s selection.

“I was taking out the garbage in my apartment building, and the phone said Chicago, and this voice said, ‘Hi, Ann, it’s Oprah Winfrey,’” she said. “And I just stood there holding the garbage while I talked to you, because I was afraid that if I moved, the call would go away, and this experience would go away.”

On Instagram, Winfrey reflected on her book club, which she launched in 1996 with Jacquelyn Mitchard’s novel The Deep End of the Ocean .

“It was over 26 years ago that I started Oprah’s Book Club, because I wanted to get the whole country reading and connecting over what I thought were great stories,” she said. “And I wasn’t sure at the time that the idea would even kind of work. But here we are. We’ve read 99 books together.”

Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.

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BookBrowse Reviews Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Summary  |  Excerpt  |  Reading Guide  |  Reviews  |  Beyond the book  |  Read-Alikes  |  Genres & Themes  |  Author Bio

Hello Beautiful

by Ann Napolitano

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
• Midwest, USA
• 1980s & '90s
• Contemporary
• Parenting & Families
• Adult-YA Crossover Fiction
• Female Friendships
• Strong Women

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About this Book

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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: "...

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Ann Napolitano gives a preview of her next book, 'Hello Beautiful'

Ann Napolitano’s last novel, “Dear Edward,” was chosen as a Read With Jenna pick in 2020. Jenna told TODAY she chose the tear-jerker because “it is a book about love and loss and finding your way after the unthinkable.” The novel follows the 12-year-old sole survivor of an airplane crash, which kills his entire immediate family.

Napolitano said her next book, “Hello Beautiful,” out in 2023, shares some thematic DNA with “Dear Edward.” This time, she’s interested in William Waters, a college basketball player with a tragic past who finds warmth and acceptance in the family he marries into.

“There are emotional notes of ‘Dear Edward’ in this novel: grief, kindness, the resiliency of the human spirit, our deep human need for connection. In ‘Dear Edward,’ a young Edward stepped out of a physical wreckage, and in ‘Hello Beautiful,’ a young William steps out of an emotional one. It’s ultimately a story about the beauty and the cost of love,” Napolitano told TODAY.

Napolitano began writing “Hello Beautiful” at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. While not about the pandemic, Napolitano said the book is a response to it nevertheless.

“Part of the reason I write is to make sense of myself and the world, and that felt necessary: we were housebound because of COVID, I was trying to make my two sons feel safe even though I didn’t, and my father had just died. I was grateful to find some comfort, and even glimmers of hope, inside the fictional world that became ‘Hello Beautiful,’ “she said.

William grows up in a house “silenced by tragedy.” Julia Padavano, the woman he’ll go on to marry, is from a raucous household. The oldest of four girls, Julia and her sisters are inseparable, and accept him into the fold.

“I began to feel, while writing, that I could heal both myself and William if I kept those vibrant sisters — Julia, Sylvie, Cecelia and Emeline — in my sightline,” she said.

See an exclusive cover reveal below.

Upon seeing the cover, Napolitano felt it was in conversation with the novel. “ One of the sisters in the novel paints murals of women’s faces, so this cover felt perfect and meaningful to the story of Hello Beautiful,” she said.

If this sounds slightly “Little Women-esque” to you, then that’s the point. The book is a subtle, modern-day homage to “Little Women.”

“When the four Padavano sisters stepped into the story — each of them strong-willed and loving but so different from one another — I realized they were the heartbeat that would shape the rest of the novel. They became my homage to the fictional sisters I loved so much growing up: the four March girls in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women,” she said.

"Hello Beautiful," by Ann Napolitano

"Hello Beautiful"

But it’s also an ode to Napolitano’s own life. Napolitano also lost her father in 2020. Missing him, she decided to imbue his best qualities into Charlie, the girls’ father.

“He always greets his four daughters with the words hello beautiful, and the warmth and sincerity of this greeting pulls each girl’s specific, inner beauty to the surface. I came to appreciate, along with the characters in the book, the remarkable power of Charlie’s love and attention,” she said.

The title is an homage to Charlie, too. He always greets his daughters with the words, "Hello beautiful." As Napolitano wrote in a letter to the reader, "The warmth and sincerity of this greeting pulls each girl’s specific, inner beauty to the surface."

As for what happens in the book? The official description teases the action: "Darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?"

Find out when "Hello Beautiful" comes out on March 13, 2023.

Elena Nicolaou is a senior entertainment editor at Today.com, where she covers the latest in TV, pop culture, movies and all things streaming. Previously, she covered culture at Refinery29 and Oprah Daily. Her superpower is matching people up with the perfect book, which she does on her podcast, Blind Date With a Book.

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Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

• Publication Date: March 14, 2023
• Genres: Fiction , Women's Fiction
• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: The Dial Press
• ISBN-10: 0593243730
• ISBN-13: 9780593243732
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Hello Beautiful Summary, Characters and Book Club Questions

By Med Kharbach, PhD | Published: November 26, 2023 | Updated: February 15, 2024

In today’s post, we’re diving into the richly layered world of Ann Napolitano’s “Hello Beautiful,” a novel that has captured the hearts of readers and critics alike. As an educational researcher with a deep passion for literature, I’m excited to explore various facets of this compelling narrative. We’ll start with a detailed summary of the novel, setting the stage for those who haven’t read it yet and offering a refresher for those who have.

Then, we’ll delve into the characters who form the heart and soul of this story. Understanding these characters is key to grasping the novel’s depth, as each one brings a unique perspective and emotional depth to the narrative.

Finally, for those of you in book clubs or just looking for a deeper understanding of “ Hello Beautiful ,” I’ve prepared a set of thought-provoking book club questions. These questions are designed to spark discussion and provide a deeper dive into the novel’s themes, character development, and narrative style.

So, whether you’re a long-time fan of Ann Napolitano, a lover of intricate family dramas, or a book club member in search of your next great read, this exploration of “Hello Beautiful” promises to be as enriching as it is enlightening. Let’s get started!

Hello Beautiful Summary

“Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano, an Oprah’s Book Club selection and a New York Times Bestseller, is a novel that resonates deeply with themes of family, love, and the enduring impact of past traumas. The story, which has garnered widespread acclaim, including being named one of the best books of the year by several prominent publications, is a testament to Napolitano’s skill in weaving a narrative that is both emotionally rich and profoundly human.

At the heart of the novel is William Waters, a character whose life has been overshadowed by a family tragedy. Growing up in a home where love and warmth were scarce, William’s world changes dramatically when he meets Julia Padavano during his freshman year of college. Julia, vibrant and ambitious, brings with her the chaos and warmth of her family, including her three sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer who finds solace in books; Cecelia, the free-spirited artist; and Emeline, the nurturing soul of the family.

The Padavano household is a stark contrast to William’s silent, grief-stricken home. It’s a place where love is abundant and every moment is a celebration of togetherness. For William, this is a novel experience, one that fills him with a sense of belonging and contentment he had never known.

Photo: Amazon

However, the tranquility of this newfound happiness is short-lived as shadows from William’s past emerge, threatening not only his and Julia’s future but also the unbreakable bond between the Padavano sisters. The novel explores the devastating impact of this rift, not just on the immediate relationships but across generations.

What makes “Hello Beautiful” particularly compelling is its exploration of the idea that love can be both a healing force and a source of deep pain. Napolitano delves into the complexities of loving someone not just despite their flaws and past but because of them. This theme is beautifully interwoven with an homage to Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” drawing parallels in the portrayal of sisterhood, resilience, and the enduring nature of familial bonds.

On a personal level, I find “Hello Beautiful” to be a rich text for exploring themes relevant to both young adults and older readers. It’s a novel that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of love and understanding.

The book could be a great addition to discussions about character development, family dynamics, and the impact of past traumas on present relationships. It’s a reminder of the power of literature to provide both a mirror and a window into the complexities of human emotions and relationships.

Related: Return to Sender Summary and Book Club Questions

Hello Beautiful Characters

In “ Hello Beautiful ” by Ann Napolitano, the characters are intricately drawn, each adding depth and texture to this compelling narrative. The central characters include:

• William Waters : The protagonist of the story, William’s life is marked by a family tragedy that leaves him in a household devoid of warmth and affection. His encounter with the Padavano family opens up a new world of love and belonging for him.
• Julia Padavano : William meets Julia in college, and she becomes a significant figure in his life. Julia is portrayed as spirited and ambitious, a stark contrast to the environment William grew up in. Her presence in William’s life is transformative.
• Sylvie Padavano : One of Julia’s sisters, Sylvie is described as a dreamer, often finding solace and joy in her books. She represents a kind of gentle escapism and a deep, reflective side of the family.
• Cecelia Padavano : Another sister, Cecelia, is characterized as a free spirit and an artist. Her creative and uninhibited nature adds a vibrant layer to the family dynamics.
• Emeline Padavano : The nurturing figure among the sisters, Emeline is patient and caring, often seen as the one who holds the family together in times of stress or change.

These characters, particularly the Padavano sisters, are central to the novel’s exploration of family dynamics, love, and resilience. Their interactions with William and with each other provide a rich canvas on which Napolitano paints a story of love, loss, and the enduring strength of familial bonds.

Hello Beautiful Book Club Questions

Here are some thought-provoking questions that can guide your book club’s conversation:

• Character Analysis : How do the characters’ past experiences shape their actions and relationships in the novel? Discuss the transformation of William Waters from the beginning to the end of the story.
• Themes of Love and Trauma : In what ways does the novel explore the impact of trauma on love and relationships? How do the characters cope with their past traumas, and what does this suggest about the nature of healing?
• Family Dynamics : The Padavano sisters each have distinct personalities and roles within their family. How do these dynamics influence their interactions with William and with each other? What do you think Napolitano is trying to convey about the nature of sisterhood and family?
• Comparison to “Little Women” : “Hello Beautiful” is described as an homage to Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” What parallels do you see between the two works? How does Napolitano both honor and diverge from Alcott’s classic?
• Setting and Atmosphere : How does the setting contribute to the overall mood of the novel? Discuss how the author uses the environment to reflect the inner worlds of the characters.
• The Role of Forgiveness and Understanding : Forgiveness and understanding are central themes in the novel. Discuss instances where these themes come into play. How do they affect the characters’ relationships and personal growth?
• Narrative Style and Structure : How does Napolitano’s writing style and the structure of the novel enhance or detract from the story? Were there any particular narrative techniques that stood out to you?
• The Title’s Significance : Discuss the title “Hello Beautiful.” How does it relate to the story and its themes? Did your understanding of the title change after reading the novel?
• Personal Reflections : Were there any moments in the book that resonated with you personally? Share experiences from your life that you found reflected in the characters’ journeys.
• Author’s Message : What do you think Ann Napolitano is trying to convey through this novel? How does it compare to her previous work, such as “Dear Edward”?

Final thoughts

From our detailed summary to the in-depth character analysis, we’ve seen how Napolitano masterfully weaves a narrative that is both heart-wrenching and hopeful.

For those of you in book clubs or simply reflecting on this read solo, the discussion questions provided are a gateway to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the novel. They invite us to consider not just the story of William Waters and the Padavano sisters, but also our own experiences and perspectives on love, family, and resilience.

Whether you’re a teacher, an educator, a parent, or simply a lover of great literature, “ Hello Beautiful ” offers a wealth of insights and emotions to explore and discuss.

In closing, I hope this journey through “Hello Beautiful” has been as enriching for you as it has been for me. Ann Napolitano’s work continues to remind us of the beauty and complexity of life, and the enduring power of a well-told story.

Related Posts

Meet Med Kharbach, PhD

Dr. Med Kharbach is an influential voice in the global educational landscape, with an extensive background in educational studies and a decade-long experience as a K-12 teacher. Holding a Ph.D. from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada, he brings a unique perspective to the educational world by integrating his profound academic knowledge with his hands-on teaching experience. Dr. Kharbach's academic pursuits encompass curriculum studies, discourse analysis, language learning/teaching, language and identity, emerging literacies, educational technology, and research methodologies. His work has been presented at numerous national and international conferences and published in various esteemed academic journals.

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Hello Beautiful

55 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Chapters 7-13

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Chapters 20-32

Chapters 33-39

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Summary and Study Guide

Introduction

Hello Beautiful is American author Ann Napolitano’s fourth novel. Hello Beautiful was an instant New York Times bestseller and was selected as an Oprah’s Book Club Pick. It has been praised by critics and readers for its homage to Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women . This guide uses the 2023 Dial Press edition.

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The novel opens with the birth of William Waters in 1960 and chronicles his lonely childhood. Only days after his birth, his sister dies, leaving his parents bereft and emotionally withdrawn. Because of this, William is emotionally neglected and begins to suffer from depression. He finds solace through basketball , which allows him to finally feel connected to other people without having to share his emotions. After graduation, he attends Northwestern University on a sports scholarship, and there he meets the vibrant and ambitious Julia Padavano , who quickly makes him her boyfriend.

With Julia come her three sisters: the bookish Sylvie, artistic Cecelia, and nurturing Emeline. Her parents, Charlie and Rose, are opposites in many ways. William’s life quickly becomes intertwined with the Padavanos, and when he and Julia are engaged, Rose tells him to start calling her mom.

William’s life becomes complicated when he shatters his knee during a basketball game. Because a previous injury never fully healed correctly, he requires multiple surgeries and is no longer able to play basketball. This causes William to sink into another depression, during which he becomes uncertain of his identity or purpose. Without an internal sense of self, William looks to Julia for guidance, and she happily provides it: She decides William should become a history professor, and he accepts this path, enrolling in Northwestern’s graduate history program.

Julia’s straightforward plans for their lives are derailed when Cecelia, who is still in high school, becomes pregnant and decides to raise the child as a single mother. Rose, a faithful Catholic, is appalled at her daughter’s choice and kicks her out of their home. Trying to get their family back together again, Julia decides to get pregnant, even though William expresses uncertainty about wanting a child. Things fall apart in quick succession: Cecelia has her baby, Izzy, and moments after Charlie visits her in the hospital, he dies; Rose pushes Sylvie, her remaining daughter, out of the house and announces that she is moving to Florida; and Julia and William’s marriage begins to deteriorate once she has the baby, Alice, and no longer is supervising his day-to-day life.

Effectively homeless, Sylvie begins sleeping at William and Julia’s place. Julia is worried about William and asks Sylvie to read a manuscript William has been secretly writing. Sylvie discovers that, while it is not a cohesive book, it is a deeply personal project in which she is able to see William’s uncertainty about his identity and purpose. Sylvie begins to see her brother-in-law’s struggles and considers him in a new light.

William drifts further into his depression. One day, he accidentally falls asleep on a bench and misses his classes, and feeling as though his life is a sham anyway, he stops attending classes altogether. For a week, he lies to Julia and keeps up the guise of his routine, but when she discovers the truth, he tells her that he will only hurt her and Alice if he stays with them. He leaves and wanders the streets of Chicago for a long time and then attempts to drown himself in Lake Michigan.

Julia tells Sylvie that William has left, and Sylvie is concerned, knowing William’s troubled state. With William’s friends, Sylvie searches all night for him and finally finds him the next day, when she sees people pulling a man out of Lake Michigan. She claims to be William’s wife so she can ride with him in the ambulance. All throughout his hospitalization and recovery, Sylvie stays by William’s side and gradually begins to fall in love with him. At first, William insists that he will simply hurt her too, but Sylvie continues to visit, and the two fall deeply in love with one another.

Fearful that William’s mental health will affect their daughter, Julia is relieved when he agrees to a divorce and relinquishment of his parental rights. She moves to New York City for a job and begins building her own life apart from her family, raising Alice as a single mother. When she learns about William and Sylvie’s relationship, she is deeply wounded and breaks ties with her sister, limiting the rest of the family’s access to her as well. As Alice grows older, she knows very little about her family, and Julia tells her that her father is dead.

For years, the rest of the Padavanos stay involved in one another’s lives in Chicago; Cecelia and Emeline live in twin duplexes, and they co-parent Izzy. With the help of his friends, William realizes he can continue to have a career in basketball, and he gets a job as a physical therapist with the Chicago Bulls. Julia is happy in New York City but realizes she misses being in her sisters’ lives. Alice grows into a cautious teen, afraid to upset her mother by asking questions about her family.

Decades later, Sylvie is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, and William calls Julia to tell her the news. Although Julia initially refuses to act, her deep connection with Sylvie pulls her back to Chicago, and the sisters reconcile before Sylvie’s death. Their reconciliation also prompts Julia to finally tell her daughter the truth about William and the Padavanos. The novel closes with Alice traveling to Chicago to meet the family she’s never known and William opening his heart to her, allowing for a final reconciliation the day after Sylvie’s death.

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