Elise

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

★★★★★

"Are you hiding a boy in one of these stacks?" Julia said.
"Not right now," Sylvie said. "It's just me and a thousand books"

A book that made me feel everything.

Reading the blurb, I expected it to be a heartbreaking read. However, it was much more than that. It is about love, which destroyed and restored everything between the four sisters.

Hello Beautiful is about the four Padovano sisters, more like best friends, who are inseparable and knotted from birth with unconditional love for each other. Julia, the eldest, is the star of the family. Sylvia, the romantic who loves to read books and works at a library, and the twins Cecelia and Emmeline, the painter and caregiver of the family. When Julia meets William and falls in love with him, she dreams of a perfect future with him, but when William's past surfaces in their lives, everything collapses, along with the betrayal that shatters the sisters apart.

I knew this was going to be my favorite as soon as I started reading the first few lines. To be born as a woman and to be gifted womanhood and sisterhood is the greatest blessing, and I felt that immensely throughout reading the book. I loved how the author described the sisters as four different panels that hold a piece of the house, making it a home. And also, it's not only about sisterhood but also about betrayal. Betrayal that shatters everything yet gives birth to the lost.

Beautiful prose on loving the dead is something very special in this book. You will find characters walking with memories of the dead as a treasure and how they hold onto it. Hello, beautiful is simply about everything. Mental health, love, betrayal, trauma, insecurities, hatred, wrongdoing, bravery, motherhood, fatherhood, found family, friendship, passion, neglected childhood, Family, and forgiving. Of all the characters, my favorite is Charlie. His Whittman poetry and the morals of this man are immaculate. You can never hate the characters because they have their reasons to act the way they did.
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