Book Club November 2023- Hello Beautiful

By: Ann Napolitano
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: The Dial Press
Pages 416

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Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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 it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s artist; and Emeline, who patiently takes care of all of them. Happily, the Padavanos fold Julia’s new boyfriend into their loving, chaotic household.

But then 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?

Vibrating with tenderness, Hello Beautiful is a gorgeous, profoundly moving portrait of what’s possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.

What I thought

I was a little hesitant when I found out this book was the pick. I’m always a bit wary of books that are the most popular of the year. Especially Oprah’s picks for whatever reason. We’ve read a few books for book club that the public has raved about and they’ve typically fallen a little short for me. My mom had also recently checked out the book and didn’t have anything positive to say and neither did one of my coworkers.

Hello Beautiful follows a family of sisters and one man over a span of about 40-50 years. It starts with alternating perspectives between William and Julia and eventually Sylvie and Alice. William had a broken childhood. He was lost until he found Julia. But with Julia comes her family and her 3 sisters. One day, William breaks and thinks he’s going to be left to himself, but he ends up being brought into the family he married into against all odds.

This book is kind of hard to review without giving too much away. The one big thing is I will mention a severe trigger warning for suicide and depression. I enjoyed the first parts of this book and found William to be interesting albeit odd, Julia to be a little pushy and delusional, and Sylvie to be the one I connected to the most. I loved reading about the relationships between the sisters and how William was trying to fit in. The book takes place in Chicago, mostly at Northwestern University, which I enjoyed, since I’m from nearby.

When we hit the point in the book where [spoiler] William attempts to take his own life, I struggled a little bit. I was previously married to someone who had severe depression so a lot of this book hit a little too close to home. As a result, I also hated Julia. I sympathized with her and how she responded, but also wanted to slap her. From that point forward, reading Julia’s chapters was a chore. I was grateful when her chapters got replaced with her daughter Alice.

There is a lot in this book. My coworker didn’t enjoy it because it felt too literary for her, and I would agree that if you don’t enjoy a book that is a bit pompous in its writing style, you won’t enjoy this one. My mom didn’t enjoy it because it was predictable and slow, to which I would say, this book isn’t trying to surprise anyone and it’s about whole live and definitely reads that way. I could’ve done with some pruning of certain events and reflections. The final 50 pages I found myself skimming over certain paragraphs just because I was ready to get to the end and find out what happened. In the end, I was between a 3.5 or a 4 for rating this book, but the ending felt like a let down after spending so much time with these characters, so I ended up more of a 3.5.

What Book Club Thought

Everyone enjoyed it overall and it did make for a really good discussion. We all did have a good laugh because out of the 5 of us it hit on 3.5 of our large life tragedies. We all hated Julie, felt iffy about Will and enjoyed Sylvie and the other sisters. It was interesting because one of my friends took issue with the fact that it was described as an homage to Little Women but truly had nothing to do with Little Women. Which is interesting because I had paid zero attention to the description.

I would say if you enjoy slower and sadder novels, this one is well written. I understand why its gotten a lot of hype. However, if death, grief, depression, or suicide are big triggers for you, please avoid this one.