I came across Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano in Indigo’s list of the Top 100 Books of the Year (it is number one on the list). Hello Beautiful is a homage to Little Women (ugh, I just love Little Women), so of course I had to read it. Do I think Hello Beautiful is the number one book of 2023? As affecting a story that it is about familial relationships, I am not impressed enough by Hello Beautiful to think it deserves top honour.

Hello Beautiful is about a young man named William Waters who comes from a family with parents who did not love him, so he finds comfort and community in playing basketball. He meets Julia Padavano in his freshman year at Northeastern University in Chicago and finds a new family in the Padavanos, including Julia’s three younger sisters: Sylvie and twins Cecelia and Emmeline. After William and Julia marry, something happens with William that eventually causes a huge rift between the Padavano sisters. The novel spans decades from the 1970s to 2008 as the Padavano sisters cope with their falling out, and wonder if they can ever find their way back to each other.

I will start with my biggest issue with Hello Beautiful: it is terribly clichéd. It is full of the stereotypical tropes that you will find in any family drama, or in any soap opera for that matter (one of the characters literally thinks about how her life is a soap opera). There is the overbearing, Catholic mother who is disappointed with her marriage; the hapless, fun-loving father who dies unexpectedly; the teen pregnancy; the taboo relationship; and, since this is a homage to Little Women, of course one of the sisters will die. There is just So. Many. Clichés. This novel was so predictable. How can this be considered the best novel of the year according to Indigo??

What I do like about Hello Beautiful is that it is a great story about sisterly bonds. It makes me wish that my sisters and I (I also have three sisters like in Little Women!) were closer than we are. The novel is mainly told through the perspectives of William, Julia and Sylvie, so they are the best developed characters in the novel, which is too bad because it would have been nice to get to know Cecelia and Emmeline better. But the fracture between the sisters is mainly due to Sylvie’s betrayal towards Julia, so it makes sense that the focus would be on them. I am not sure if I completely buy sisterly love being strong enough to overcome the kind of betrayal that Sylvie is responsible for. What she does is pretty unforgivable regardless of how much Napolitano wants us to emphasize with her. But then again, Julia is not easy to emphasize with either as she is controlling and gives up on William when she realizes she cannot mold him into the man she wants him to be. She also does not have much empathy for people going through a mental health crisis.

Despite the novel’s shortcomings and problematic characters, I found myself feeling very emotional towards the end of Hello Beautiful and I realized that I did enjoy reading it. So, I do recommend reading Hello Beautiful, but I still stand by my opinion that it is not the number one book of 2023. I have definitely read more interesting books this year (you will see my short list in January!).