Book #10 |
Book: Hello Beautiful | Author: Ann Napolitano | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 387 | Duration: 02/06/26 – 02/07/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, romance, family, mental health | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A modern, darker re-imagining of Louisa May Alcott‘s Little Women. 🖌6-word review: Great pacing — it moved right along. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “He was encouraging by nature; he attended college track events just to cheer on the slowest runners.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: caterwauled, physio | |||
| Description:* 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.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially reading it right after reading Little Women, regarding which the author says, “If this [story] 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.” There certainly are “nods” to the 4 Little Women sisters in this story, but the parents are completely different from those in Little Women, especially the mother. And there wasn’t a “one-to-one correspondence” between the 4 (Hello Beautiful) Padavano sisters and the 4 (Little Women) March sisters. I also felt that this “re-imagining” was much darker than Little Woman, which actually appealed to me. This was a Mostly Social Book Club book, and the best thing about it was that, while I was on the library waitlist for it, I was inspired to read Little Women while I waited. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
