A review by macykey
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I was so emotional reading this book. This book is the perfect manifestation that two things can be true at once. You can have made some shitty choices that hurt people, but they still were the best choices for you and you’re happy with the outcome. You can have made choices that were the best choice for you at the time, but later on you realize it might not have been the best choice. You can be mad at people, but still love them with your whole heart. You can go years without speaking to someone and then come back together and it’s like picking up where you left off. I loved every single Padavano sister. I loved Kent, I would read a whole book just on Kent. I even loved William. I loved how
Alice embodied William’s best and worst qualities even though she had never met him before. She was tall like him, she had his spirit, she had his physical features, but she also had some of his mental health problems.
This book also gave me a newfound appreciation for all the time I got to spend with my Memaw in the years leading up to her death. This book takes place mostly in the 80’s and, when I read books like this one that take place in a specific time period, I often wonder why the author wrote the series of events in that time period. Especially because a lot of the time, you could easily transpose the book onto a different time period and it’d more or less be the same book. But with this one, I get it. You need the time period to give a little context or set the stakes higher for certain things that happen. The time period itself helps explain the motives of some of the characters even if the characters don’t. 
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