Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
She’d read in a park near the school, storing novels in the hollow of an ancient oak she thought of as her friend.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
THE DAY WILLIAM ASKED Sylvie to write down his secrets, she left his room and noticed that her hands were shaking. What had happened in that room was how she’d always thought church should feel. The air seemed to break open, and what passed between them felt sacred.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Alice tried to imagine her mother as a little girl, sharing a bedroom with another little girl. Julia had just spoken more about her childhood in ninety seconds than she had in the entirety of Alice’s life.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The super-duplex, with its shared houses and unusual layout, mirrored the unusual layout of the Padavanos, or what was left of them. Sylvie and her sisters and William had built their own lives to suit themselves, to serve the size and shape they occupied.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
She was aware that she was writing about her childhood in an attempt to make a third door; she needed to take a sledgehammer to a wall to find a way out of the here and now.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“And she’s out,” Emeline said, because Izzy had fallen asleep. The little girl’s expression was serious, as if her unconscious mind was contemplating difficult problems: how to optimize budget deficits in a modern economy, perhaps, or whether free will is compatible with determinism.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
He knew it would make no sense to his wife, and having the pages out of his hands made him feel like he’d lost part of himself. Days went by without Julia mentioning the book, and she seemed to go to great effort not to meet his eyes. The fog that had arrived with William’s injury returned to his peripheral vision, like cloud cover circling a mount
... See moreAnn Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
William’s wife wasn’t much of a reader anymore. Of course—he realized—Julia would have asked Sylvie to read his book. Not as an act of betrayal but as a way to bring her best self to the task. Julia’s love and ambition plus Sylvie’s critical-reading skills.
Ann Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
After a week of sleeplessness, Julia felt like a Picasso painting—her eyes didn’t match, and her shoulders were at different heights.