Hello Beautiful

by Ann Napolitano

The term ‘family saga’ tends to send me running to the other end of the library, and the often accompanying word count can be equally offputting, but Ann Napolitano’s excellent writing carried me through. She’s a master of POV and this novel has a fascinating structure, a bit like a relay race, where different characters pick up the narrative baton. Sometimes their time frames overlap and show the same incident from a different perspective, sometimes they just run along in sequence. I understand that the four central sisters grew up dominated by an old fashioned Italian matriarch, but at times their oblivion to the “women’s lib” of the 70s or “feminism” of the 80s, is hard to take. But the writing did keep me reading. Napolitano is great at giving background info as part of action, and taking us so deep into the lives and minds of her cast that we understand them completely, feel their pain, and rejoice at the mended relationships and growth that ends their story.