Hello, beautiful people!
Inspired by the classic novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Ann Napolitano’s novel Hello Beautiful delves into the strikingly beautiful story of the four Padavano sisters, Julia, Sylvie, Cecelia and Emeline, as they navigate love, loss, hope and grief over the course of a lifetime.
Hello Beautiful is similar to Little Women in the sense that they are both slice-of-life novels lacking a clearly defined plot. Instead, they are collections of both ordinary and extraordinary events that analyze how these events and relationships shape the course of each character’s life. While the beginning of Hello Beautiful may seem boring in comparison to the fast-paced romance novels that are popular today, it contains the exposition and character development necessary to craft a poignant ending.
The novel begins with expository scenes from the perspective of three of the characters as new adults: Julia Padavano, Sylvie Padavano and William Waters — a source of conflict between the family because both Julia and Sylvie fall in love with him.
As the novel continues, we receive glimpses of the sisters’ lives, all of which provide emotional depth to the family. Through mundane events such as the birth of Julia’s first child to Sylvie’s daily life as a librarian, the novel creates an emphasis on the subtle beauty of each and every moment.
The story ends at a funeral of one of the four Padavano sisters, and despite the bleak setting, the funeral marks a beginning rather than an end, as the Padavano family takes the first hopeful steps towards reconciliation.
The life story of each character generates discussion on deeper topics such as intergenerational trauma, identity and mental health. Throughout the novel, every character struggles to understand their role in the Padavano family and in society, and Napolitano draws beautiful connections between each moment to create complex character profiles.
Hello Beautiful is a book of oxymorons. It is a book about love and hatred, beginnings and ends and chaos and calm. In just a few hundred pages, Napolitano is able to capture the very essence of life through the relationships the characters form with each other. Above all, Hello Beautiful reminds us of the prevailing beauty of life and the people in it. It is perhaps best described by Napolitano herself with the following line:
“We’re part of the sky, and the rocks in your mother’s garden and that old man who sleeps by the train station. We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is.”