Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Hello Beautiful

“When your love for a person is so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.”⁣
― Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful⁣
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What a fitting book to be reviewing on Family Day (very out of order, but I had to). Paying homage to one of the most beautiful tales of sisterhood, Little Women, Hello Beautiful tells the story of the four Padavano sisters. ⁣
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The emotional, generational story sweeps us away into the complex and multi-faceted dynamics of family. I loved this story because it was messy; because not everyone liked each other and because each individual was deeply flawed. In short I loved the brutality in its honesty, and how each characters’ struggles gave a chance for the reader to find a spot to empathize. Whether you felt the depth of William’s loneliness, the relentless ambition of Julia, or even the deep scars and regrets of Rose there is some of us in each of these brilliantly built characters.⁣
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Just like in the world we live in, we carry the effect of everyone we’ve met to get the imperfect sum of all of our parts. And each person we love carries their own imperfections to press into the mold of you. Their love is grief, it is joy, it is anger, it is fear, it is forgiveness and boundaries, it is hurt and it is so dang real. ⁣
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The real lesson of this book? Whether it be the length of a breath or a lifetime, who we love changes everything.⁣
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CW: Emotional abuse, child neglect, teen pregnancy, family hostility, suicide, depression.

Content Warnings

vidotson's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

cat_is_turning_pages's review against another edition

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sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.25

Truly Awful

Within my first couple hours of listening to this book, I began to question why the author had written it. Given the high accolades this book has received, I kept an open mind and gave the novel the benefit of the doubt until the very last word of the very last chapter.

This book is slow, depressing, and morally chaotic. The main characters tend to be unlikeable and make stupid decisions that ruin their lives. But instead of teaching these characters any lessons, the author chooses to have one of these characters “meaningfully” declare how proud she is of herself for making her stupidest decision decades after it was made.

The only conclusion I have been able to come to is that this book was written as an apologetic piece for cruel behavior and/or bad decisions. The moral of the story is a combination of “love conquers all” and “you should forgive your family members no matter what they do.”

Forgiveness can be a wonderful path to freedom. However, it can also be used by selfish people to justify mistreating others. This story contained both types of forgiveness, but tried to pass all of it off as the former.

The cover and title seem to promise a glimpse into the beauty of the human condition, but Hello Beautiful is one of the ugliest books I have ever read.

Content Warnings

jnnjnks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

maddyhavranek's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I really enjoyed this book! I thought the characters were full of life and unbelievably relatable, and I felt a lot of joy reading about the sisters’ relationships, but also a lot of sadness as their relationships changed. Overall, I thought that the way the character’s lives intertwined was conceived in such an interesting way, and I thought that the love and relationships depicted in the book were incredibly real. And, who doesn’t love a story of 6+ strong women who are unapologetically themselves, and a story that handles a struggle with mental health in such an elegant way.

I also really liked the writing style — I felt like it was perfectly descriptive without taking you out of the story.

I think this book could be a 5 star read for me, but I didn’t find myself being propelled through it as much as I could have been. Could be a me thing vs a book thing, but that’s why I didn’t give it 5.

Content Warnings