Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Amy   

fiction, family drama

Hello Beautiful is the story of William Waters and the family he marries into. The novel is told from several family members’ points of view over the course of a few decades. William had grown up in a home without love, feeling like he did not belong. At college, he meets Julia who comes from a close-knit family with four daughters.  When family drama (questionable decisions and tragedies) strikes, the family’s world is shaken.

I really liked the way Ann Napolitano presented the idea of people with questions vs. people with answers.  I found it an effective way to differentiate between decision-makers/goal-hunters vs. people who are less self-directive/live mainly in the present. And then, later in the novel, the main character who used to have the answers is now only able to create questions while the other one has the answers. Napolitano’s writing was clear and her story was appealing in a way that made me curious to find out what would happen with these characters.

This story is about individual growth and family dynamics but especially love, loyalty, and communication. The bulk of the story deals with the consequences of parental absence. I couldn’t help but notice the story’s patterns of parents choosing to leave (or not be present) and took heart from the nearly magical trend in the Padavano family where one family member leaves on the same day another suddenly appears. And, as a wife and parent to very tall people, I really appreciated the aspects of this story about tall people and I felt those observations were spot on.

This is a story with a great ending that lifted my opinion of this novel higher than it would have otherwise been.

Maura Tierney, the audiobook narrator, was satisfactory. While I liked her voice quality, I didn’t like her speaking rhythm. She would take unusual pauses in the middle of sentences at times. Other times, her inflections and emphasis on words were incorrect or missing altogether. She didn’t have a wide repertoire of voices and she sometimes sounded like she was distracted while reading the book. Being an actor does not ensure one will be a great voice actor. I’ll give her a B.