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Hello Beautiful

Audiobook
0 of 6 copies available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 6 copies available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

Brought to you by Penguin.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes a beautifully tender, heartbreaking, and moving story of four sisters over three decades
Meet the Padvano girls. Best friends and sisters, they are thought of as inseparable by everyone in their close-knit Chicago neighbourhood. Julia, the eldest, is the "rocket" of the family - she always has a destination in mind and clear plans for how to get there. Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a life for herself other than the expected path of wife and mother. Cecelia and Emmeline, the twins, are the artist and the caregiver. From childhood, the four sisters complete each other, expecting that their family will always be intact.
When Julia falls in love with William Walters, a history student and college sports star, she's delighted by the way her plans for adulthood are coming together. A husband, a house, a family. But when darkness from William's past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who steps in to help. Suddenly, things shift. Dynamics and relationships, priorities and secrets - everything that was once a given no longer is.
Rich and vivid, heartbreaking and heart-mending, Hello Beautiful captures the joy, tragedy, trust, and betrayal to ask: what does it mean to be a family? And once shattered, can it be pieced back together?
***Praise for Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano***
'Wonderful . . . a beautifully written coming-of-age story' Nina Stibbe
'Powerful' New York Times
'Ann Napolitano's writing is astonishing. I'm in awe' Marian Keyes
'Moving and emotional' Anne Tyler
'That rare book that breaks your heart and stitches it back together' Jodi Picoult
'Stunning, life-affirming' Vogue
'Made me think, nod in recognition, care about its characters, and cry, and you can't ask more of a novel than that' Emma Donoghue
©2023 Ann Napolitano (P)2023 Penguin Audio

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 16, 2023
      Napolitano (Dear Edward) explores the meaning of love and family with this striking story of four Chicago sisters and the young man who enters their lives. William Waters, a basketball player from outside Boston, enrolls at Northwestern in 1978 on an athletic scholarship. After he starts dating fellow student Julia Padavano, he’s embraced by Julia’s three younger sisters—Sylvie, a romantic searching for a great love affair; Cecelia, an aspiring artist; and Cecelia’s earnest and quiet twin, Emeline—and is delighted to find a loving and loud family so different from his own, his parents having grown taciturn after his older sister’s death years before. William and Julia marry, while the unmarried Cecelia gets pregnant at 17, Sylvie presses on with a job at a library, and Emeline works at a daycare where she fosters a crush on a coworker. After one character attempts suicide, the bonds of the expanding family are tested, and the Padavano women reexamine the limits of how much they’re willing to sacrifice. The author breathes great life into her characters, and brings insight into their quiet moments as they gradually come into their own. This will move readers. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Maura Tierney brings understated warmth to Napolitano's story about the enduring bonds of family. William Waters, who was raised in a household devoid of affection, is swept into the boisterous Padavano family when he marries eldest sister Julia. Tierney precisely conveys the sisters' personalities--Sylvie, bookish yet constantly seeking true love; Cecilia, artistic and brave; and her twin sister, Emmaline, the peacemaker. Tierney excels in bringing out the subtlest of emotions, especially as she describes how William's depression increases and affects the entire family. Her precise yet gentle narration works with Napolitano's prose, creating an immersive listening experience. Listeners will be drawn into this affecting, tender story and moved by each character's struggle to find belonging and love, even when it comes in unexpected places. S.A.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

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