Author: Ann Napolitano
Hello Beautiful is a modern take on Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, just far better written and with less soppy stuff in writing, and certainly without historical behavioural differences, e.g., in Little Women there is an excessive patriarchal subordination to parents and elders, which does not happen in Hello Beautiful. Obviously, I understand that the two books were written at different times, but I enjoyed Hello Beautiful more. However, I did not enjoy this book immediately and the only reason I did not drop it is because it is a book club read so I absolutely had to finish it. Otherwise, I would have dropped it and that would have been a shame because the book really creates an impression, and it is a book I will remember. I think what mostly put me off is that the story starts very slowly. Like in Little Women, in Hello Beautiful the focus is on four sisters, in this case of Italian American origin who live in Chicago. The story starts in the 1970s and continues to 2008. The book is an interplay of stories and thoughts of the main protagonists, mostly Julia, William and Sylvia but we also learn about others. These stories read very well and provide a very compelling reading.
Julia, the oldest sister meets William and introduces him to his other three sisters, Emmeline, Cecilia and Sylvia. Julia is a very strong character who plans lives for all sisters and herself and who then plans William’s life. William is thus to do a PhD in history at Northwestern and become a history professor whilst leaving basketball playing aside following an injury that ended his career. Doing basketball coaching, for example, is not an option for Julia and she would never marry William under those terms and conditions. It takes a whole book for me to accept Julia, and I only managed that towards the very end.
Sylvie is the Hello beautiful girl from the title. A daydreamer who escapes school to read books that have a meaning for her, and who ends up working in a library out of passion for books. She kisses boys for 90 seconds in the library whilst waiting for Prince Charming and is the most similar to her father who loved poetry and saw the world as a beautiful place, in stark contrast to his wife Rose, sisters’ mother who only ever saw him losing jobs, drinking and making the family struggle whilst not noticing the poetic nature and his willingness to help others.
Emmeline and Cecilie are secondary characters in the book. Emmeline is gay and develops a relationship with a woman whilst Cecilie has a child out of wedlock, thus both losing contact with their mother Rose who rejects them due to their life choices.
The book is a beautiful homage to Little Women, which I noticed soon after starting reading and long before Napolitano refers to Little Women when explaining how sisters, when growing up, used to argue about who is Beth, and who is Jo. It is quite clear who William is in this book. The book portrays family relations through parental relationships, life choices and characters that sometimes match and sometimes simply don’t. But the book reminds us to look for what matters in life, not just the convenience of a marriage or partnership but finding someone who will truly love and understand us, and also relying on family and their support but also understanding their choices. The book also discusses motherhood and parental relations, how families stick together and how things sometimes fall apart. When comparing Little Women and Hello Beautiful we see that two authors wrote their family books in different times and used different language, with women making different choices, but things have not changed as much as we would like to think they did.
Beautiful. Stick it out with this book and you will not be sorry.
Thank you for reading.