Breakaway Books

Authored by Ann Napolitano; Published 2023; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️

I can’t say that I’ve loved many of the novels that I have read featuring family drama. Too often, there are grudges held across decades over fights that seem to be about nothing at all. Hello Beautiful leans in the opposite direction, pouring out kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness, over events that would tear most families apart.

In Hello Beautiful, the Padavano sisters are a tight-knit quartet, stuffed together in a Chicago working class neighborhood with their parents. Julia has big plans for her life, wins a scholarship to Northwestern, finds her future husband–William–and sets him on a trajectory to become a successful, tenured professor. But as they age, it becomes obvious that neither Julia nor any of the sisters can control how their lives unravel and fall apart. As tragedy strikes time and again in their lives, they have to ask themselves if they will stay together or allow themselves to be torn apart.

I don’t have sisters, and after reading this book, I’m not entirely sure whether I want them more or less than I did before. On the one hand, the novel beautifully depicts a deep bond among all four of them–they understand each other, they support each other, and even when they’re angry at each other, they’re tied together. But at times it seems as if the bubble of their closeness kept out other sources of love. It is one sister’s romance and another’s pregnancy that ultimately rip the family in half, and part of me recoiled at the sisters’ lack of ability to act independently without dire consequences. In the end, though, the love among them is turned into an abundance of forgiveness and mercy, and it is enough to remind me that family, while dramatic at times, is among the most miraculous sources of unconditional love. 

What I really appreciated about the novel, though, is its treatment of William’s severe depression. It does not shy away from the fact that mental illness can require lifelong care and discipline in order to recover. After William attempts suicide, he doesn’t get to walk away after a short stint in the hospital–he has to go on a medication regiment, see a therapist, and explore the emotions he’s been running from his entire life. He needs a strong support system to get him through it for decades after his initial breakdown, and his portrayal in this novel might as well be an advertisement for the need for therapy after childhood trauma. (Incidentally, Julia and her daughter Alice also do a great job showcasing why therapy is critical to having a happy and successful life.)

Hello Beautiful shows the highest highs and lowest lows of family. It doesn’t shy away from depicting the reality of trauma and depression. The two together make for a highly emotional book, but it’s certainly a good one.