“Oh, Elke, I read this book during the holidays which I loved, and I’m sure you’ll love it, too!” a colleague of mine told me on the first day of school. Needless to say, I bought this novel, Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano without even asking her what she liked about it – and what it was about this novel that she thought might appeal to me. Want to know whether it did, and what the books we recommend say about us? Read on!
Hello Beautiful is about four sisters and one man, and the way they are bound together. William Waters lost his sister when he was six days old, a tragedy from which his parents never recovered. Thankfully, due to some talent and his towering height, he wins a basketball scholarship to Northwestern University in Chicago, where he meets his future wife, perfectionist Julia Padavano, and her three sisters, romantic Sylvie, artistic Cecilia and caring Emeline. Finally, William experiences what it’s like to be loved by a family, but when he and Julia are expecting a baby, he suffers a mental breakdown. Julia and their baby, Alice, leave for New York, and William and Sylvie find each other – but they make sure Julia doesn’t find out, for that could tear the family apart.
Right. So here’s the problem having a book blog: you always read something into anything and try to understand everything straight away. For instance, I tried to find out what this novel was about – and if you look at that summary, you will notice that many things happen, but nothing actually becomes clear. Who are those five people? Why do they do the things they do? I was struggling a lot with this summary and I must have rewritten it five times to get the essence of Hello Beautiful just right. I didn’t know whether it was truly about the relationships between the sisters, or between the sisters and William, or between them and their parents. Or is this novel about something else entirely, such as suicide attempts, failed marriages or failure in general? Or is it about unconditional love, or about loving basketball? Or about pain and how it can be prevented if someone pays attention to it?
And do the characters symbolise anything? They all have their own personality which determines who they are and which choices they make. I sympathized with William because he tends to hide away when he’s feeling bad, with Julia because she’s never satisfied and always wants more, with Sylvie because she is always looking for a true connection with others, and in Alice because she feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere. I think each character shows the complexity of human nature, and they can only truly accept themselves if they’re together – just as we can never truly be ourselves if we try to block out the parts we don’t like. Or am I overthinking everything?
Also, why did Napolitano decide on such an interesting point of view? The novel consists of a number of key moments from the characters’ lives, from 1960 to 2008. Each of those moments is told from different perspectives, namely William’s, Julia’s, Sylvie’s and eventually Alice’s. This way, the reader learns what each character feels during those pivotal moments in their lives. Furthermore, you are reminded that there are different sides to every story. Simultaneously, I felt like the years that weren’t described were much more interesting, because real life usually happens in those mundane moments nobody even remembers. Or is it only the life-changing events that define us?
But the question that really kept me up at night while reading Hello Beautiful was this one: Why did my colleague recommend this novel to me? Did she like the themes? Had she fallen in love with the characters? Which one would she have identified with? Did one of them reminded her of me? Was she intrigued by the structure, too? Or was there nobody else she knows who likes reading and did she just want to talk about this novel with someone, anyone? And by the way, why did she like it so much?
According to Word, there are seventeen questions in this text, excluding the introduction and the final paragraph. I don’t think I’ve ever asked more questions in a single blog post. I wonder why. Is it because I haven’t been very productive recently and really wanted to write something good? Is it because I think about a book more when someone’s recommended it to me? Is it because this novel, because it leaves so many things unsaid, that I started filling in the gaps for myself? (And that makes twenty questions.)
Whenever I talk about books, I always say that each book teaches us something about ourselves. Whether a book makes you think of one question or twenty, that doesn’t matter, as long as we’re open to it. Maybe that’s why my colleague told me I had to read Hello Beautiful. Or maybe she just wanted to tease me and wanted me to ask myself all these questions, much like William does, while I could just have been reading a good book. Like Sylvie.
What did you think of Hello Beautiful? Have you ever read a novel in which the same events are described through several characters? Which character appeals to you the most? Which book made you overthink everything? By the way: Napolitano’s novel is an homage (it says so on the back) to Little Women – did you notice that? Have you read that book? Which book would you write an homage to? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
The Open Book 