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Sign up todayHello Beautiful (Oprah's Book Club)
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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“A book of sisterhood drama and how time and change binds them closer together or pulls them apart.”
— Kelly • Beyond Words Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“This entertaining novel brings you fully into the richly detailed and realistic lives of the four Padavano sisters and their family. You'll alternately want to shake these characters out of their flaws and hug them. ”
— Mike • A Great Good Place for Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Napolitano did such a beautiful job with this book! Though seemingly a story about a boy and a girl, it is actually so much more than that - it's a novel about love, despair, identity, and redemption. I felt like Napolitano captured the essence of what it means to struggle with mental illness so well in her prose and how we all deserve to be loved unconditionally, especially when we are at our lowest. I would definitely recommend this book and praise it with accolades. It was, quite simply, breathtaking. ”
— Maddie • A Great Good Place for Books
Bookseller recommendation
“As a bookseller, it’s common to read through books at a breakneck pace; always on to the next tale, the next genre, the next page-turner. When you come a cross a book so achingly beautiful as Hello Beautiful...time slows. Or, you wish it would. I wanted to spend YEARS within this story. I adored the complexity AND simplicity of the sisters’ relationships with each other. Reading Hello Beautiful was like spending time with the friend who ‘knew me when…’ and the sister who knew me always. This book is the very definition of a GEM. ”
— Kathy • The Well-Read Moose
Summary
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! From the author of Dear Edward comes a “powerfully affecting” (People) family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?
“Another tender tearjerker . . . Napolitano chronicles life’s highs and lows with aching precision.”—The Washington Post
ONE OF THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, Time, Vogue, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, New York Post, She Reads, Bookreporter
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 when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion 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?
An exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic, Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.
Reviews
“Radiant and brilliantly crafted . . . Napolitano’s [work] resists the easy satisfactions of the sentimental and never settles for simple answers to emotional predicaments faced by her characters.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)“This sumptuous family saga is one of those rare novels whose singular characters are so beautifully rendered, it’s as if they’re your best friends, and you’re grateful to be in their orbit.”—Oprah Quarterly
“Hello Beautiful will make you weep buckets because you come to care so deeply about the characters and their fates. . . . [Napolitano] 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.”—The Washington Post
“A sprawling, hugely affecting novel [filled with] empathetic characters and rich writing . . . [Hello Beautiful] has rightfully earned comparisons to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, with its four close, vibrant sisters and the lonely outsider who infiltrates their circle.”—Shondaland
“This is a warm blanket of a book, one that reminds you of the enveloping power of literature and leaves you very grateful to have encountered it.”—Vogue
“Little Women fans will be endeared by Hello Beautiful's homage to the March siblings, in the form of the four Padavano sisters. Any lover of a sweeping family saga will be moved by the Padavanos’ unraveling.”—Harper’s Bazaar
“Napolitano’s novel will make you think deeply about sisterhood and what we choose to share with those we love.”—Town & Country
“Can love make a broken person whole? That is the simple but compelling question at the center of . . . this engrossing and emotional family drama.”—E! Online
“Absorbing.”—AARP
“Napolitano is a master of examining what binds us to family, what makes family, and how to love in difficult times.”—Literary Hub
“A family drama with echoes of classics and characters who are distinctly written. As a reader, you’ll laugh and grieve with William and the Padavanos as they go through life—soaring as much as they stumble.”—Book Riot
“Ann Napolitano’s new novel, Hello Beautiful, is exactly that: beautiful, perceptive, wistful. It’s a story of family and friendship, of how the people we are bound to can also set us free. I loved it.”—Miranda Cowley Heller, New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace
“A rich, complex family saga, Hello Beautiful is a portrait of love and grief in equal measure. Napolitano’s prose is so lovely, so keenly perceptive, that it held me captive until I finished. A lot of people are going to love this story.”—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes
“Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving and propulsive novel about the deepest connections of family and love, trauma and healing. In intricately elegant prose, Ann Napolitano explores both the cost and power of loyalty and honesty. This is a book to treasure and share with friends and loved ones.”—Angie Kim, bestselling author of Miracle Creek
“Hello Beautiful is the work of a great author at the height of her powers. Equally immersive, emotional, and brilliantly crafted, this is an early contender for best novel of the year.”—J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest
“This is a story about family and sisters and storytelling, but it’s also an examination of identity and the consequences of doing love badly and how love can be redeemed. Read this book! You’ll be glad you did.”—Therese Anne Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of It All Comes Down to This
“This is a richly woven story about family, but it’s also a unique take on Little Women. There are no heroes or villains here, only people—flawed and loving and striving like the rest of us. ‘Generosity’ is the word that comes to mind when I reflect on this gorgeous novel.”—Allegra Goodman, New York Times bestselling author of The Cookbook Collector and Sam Expand reviews