58 pages • 1 hour read
Ann NapolitanoHello Beautiful
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Bonds of Sisterhood
At the core of Hello Beautiful is a celebration of the bonds of sisterhood. This is expressed in myriad ways, including major plot points, such as the twins’ shared super-duplex and the reconciliation between Julia and Sylvie. It’s also expressed through allusions to Little Women and Napolitano’s references to Walt Whitman’s poetry. Alcott’s novel and Whitman’s transcendentalism explore the way that emotional bonds can defy physical boundaries and enter a spiritual realm. Nicole Bauer, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tulsa, writes, “Whitman’s expanded sense of self led him to identify and feel at one with the world, to sense that he was both himself and every person he met, that he, and everyone else, contains multitudes” (“Containing Multitudes: Towards a Wider Sense of Self and Compassion.” Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, 3 Nov. 2021). Similarly, the Padavano sisters feel that they are interconnected with one another even when time and space separate them.
As girls, the Padavanos grow up with their lives completely intertwined. They frequently pile into the same bed, their bodies fitting like puzzle pieces across the mattress. This physical closeness represents something deeper, a feeling that they are part of a larger unit: “[T]he four Padavano girls shared their lives, celebrating and utilizing one another’s strengths, covering for one another’s weaknesses” (98). Growing up, the sisters could count on each other to fill in for the qualities they lacked. When Julia needs a literary eye, she calls Sylvie; when Cecelia needs help with Izzy, she relies on Emeline. This trade-off of roles allows them to fully embrace their own unique potentials and creates security in their lives.
Furthermore, even when they are separated, they can still feel these bonds tying them together. Despite her long estrangement from Sylvie, Julia still feels connected with her sister: “Was it possible that she was falling apart in New York because her sister was dying in Chicago? That there were invisible threads that connected them, which she had been unable to see and therefore unable to sever?” (325). Despite Julia’s attempts to disconnect from Sylvie, the bonds of sisterhood are too strong. Julia sees Sylvie as an extension of herself, and Sylvie feels the same way about Julia. Through their relationship, Napolitano explores sisterhood as more than a familial connection, more than shared characteristics and history, but as an essential part of one’s identity and selfhood.
Alienation and Reconciliation Within Families
Alienation and reconciliation within families are major recurring themes in Hello Beautiful. While he is growing up, William feels alienated from his parents, and this has a profound impact on his developing psyche. William unknowingly continues the cycle of alienation by giving up his rights to Alice. Both Cecelia and Sylvie experience alienation from Rose, who rejects their life choices and refuses to try to understand them. But these moments of alienation are far from hopeless—the novel also explores how family members can reconcile and reconnect. Throughout, alienation is depicted as cyclical, a pattern of behavior that can be passed down from parent to child and repeated throughout generations. Only reconciliation and openness to love can break the cycle.
The novel explores emotional alienation as a result of grief and fear of further loss. After the death of their daughter, Williams’s parents allow their grief to close them off from their son. As a result, William does not feel like a member of his family: “Off the basketball court, he had no usefulness. No one would miss him. If he disappeared, it would be like he’d never existed” (10). This alienation has a profound impact on his emotional and psychological development, resulting in severe depression and suicidal ideation later in life. William unknowingly perpetuates this cycle of familial alienation by relinquishing his parental rights of Alice after she is born. He makes the decision out of love because he fears that he will be a negative influence in her life because of his depression. However, he does not realize that to Alice, it still seems like he rejected her. Later in the novel, as William is revisiting his childhood and the loss of his sister, he realizes that he is repeating his parents’ mistake and begins to slowly open himself up to reconciliation with Julia and Alice.
When Cecelia becomes pregnant and decides to raise the child as a single mother, Rose rejects her daughter and forces her to leave her childhood home. This is because Rose is afraid of her daughter repeating her mistakes; Rose became pregnant with Julia out of wedlock and was rejected by her own mother. But Rose unwittingly is continuing the generational cycle of rejection by cutting Cecelia out of the family. Rose also associates Cecelia’s pregnancy with Charlie’s death, insisting that the shock of the news led to his heart attack. Twice in the novel, births and deaths occur on the same day; Williams’s birth accompanies his sister’s death, and Izzy’s birth accompanies Charlie’s death. This pattern implies that birth and death are inseparable and that being part of a family means having to deal with both love and loss. The challenge that faces the characters is how to maintain their love for their family members in the midst of loss and crisis. Cecelia and William provide examples of how to overcome the cycle of alienation. Cecelia forgives her mother and continues to love her despite her rejection, and William learns to embrace Alice and see his childhood from his parents’ perspective.
Love as Seeing Another Person
Hello Beautiful portrays love as the act of truly seeing someone and accepting them as they are. Throughout the novel, characters experience love in different forms, whether it be romantic love, familial love, or love between friends. The common thread that runs through these relationships is the idea that true love means letting go of one’s own expectations and fears enough to care about someone on their own terms.
This love is primarily demonstrated through the love between the sisters. Even though they have grown up together and share many similarities, the sisters are individuals and sometimes make choices that the others do not understand. For example, when Cecelia decides to raise Izzy without a father, her older sisters question why but ultimately stay as a supportive presence in her life. When Julia calls Emeline and tells her that she has decided to move to New York City, Emeline tells her she thinks this choice is wrong and asks her to stay. But later, Emeline is the only one to visit her and break the news of Sylvie and William’s relationship. When Emeline comes out as lesbian, her older sisters are surprised but remind her that they love her anyway. Finally, Sylvie’s choice to pursue her relationship with William is something Julia feels she will never understand. It takes Julia the longest to reconcile her expectations of others with the reality of how they need to live their lives, but she eventually reconciles with Sylvie and tells Alice the truth. Although they have their differences, the sisters ultimately come together and support each other, accepting each other's flaws and mistakes.
William and Sylvie's love story is another example of how Napolitano explores the theme of love as seeing someone for who they are. Sylvie knows from a young age that to be loved is to be seen: “Her soulmate would qualify; he would be more than a boyfriend or a husband. He would see Sylvie, as if through a pane of clear glass, and not want to change any aspect of her” (37). When she begins spending more time with William, she realizes that she has found what she was looking for in him and that his recognition of her without judgment helps her see the best qualities in herself. Sylvie loves William in this way and can sense his inner struggle even before he and Julia separate. Even though she disagrees with his choice to give up his parental rights to Alice, she does not judge or condemn him for it, which gives him space to grow and evolve on his own terms.
Finally, Alice’s friends, Carrie and Rhoan, demonstrate nonjudgmental love toward her by telling her how they see her. When Alice finds out that her father is still alive and in Chicago, they encourage her to go seek him out for answers, telling her that they see her as someone who has been waiting for an opportunity like this. Carrie points out that Julia has had a negative impact on Alice by being so controlling, which is something Alice feels but never admitted to herself. By sharing these observations with Alice, her friends show her that they have borne witness to her life out of love; instead of trying to change her, they encourage her to do what’s best for her.
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