Hello Beautiful

Synopsis: William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. He seeks refuge on the basketball court and lucky for him, he’s tall! He leaves his New England home to attend Northwestern on a basketball scholarship, subsequently meets and becomes engaged to Julia Padavano. Julia is the oldest of four sisters in a loud and boisterous Italian-American family. They welcome him and ease his loneliness, but you can’t really get away from your problems. William’s issues surface, a family rift develops, and the sisters have to make choices.

Review: Is it possible to like a book when you don’t really like the characters and the plot seems a little far fetched? I guess so, because, I DID really like this book! But many of the characters were hard to like (I’m looking at you Julia and Mom), or a bit one dimensional. If you can give a one word description of what each character is like—the Artist! the Nurturer! the GirlBoss!—then maybe they have been reduced to a stereotype. I found some of the decisions made by these people extreme and hard to believe. The central theme of the book is love, and how its presence or absence defines our lives, but there were SO MANY opportunities for forgiveness and redemption that went unfulfilled. I guess that is true IRL as well. In spite of these small criticisms, the writing was beautiful, and I would happily explore other books in Ann Napolitano’s body of work. My book club was a bit mixed on this one, but I would recommend.

Rating: 4/5

Recipe: This novel is set in Chicago, and while not necessary to the plot, that’s great because there’s a lot of good food in Chicago! Italian beef sandwiches are one of my favorites. This easy version is done in the crock pot with only a few ingredients which is always a plus.

3 lb chuck roast, trimmed of fat and cut into large hunks

1 envelop Italian salad dressing mix

8 oz pepperoncini slices, plus extra for serving

8 oz giardiniera, plus extra for serving

1 can beef broth

provolone cheese slices

Sub rolls

1) Place chuck roast in crock pot, sprinkle with salad dressing mix. Add the peppers, a splash of juice from the jar, giardiniera and beef broth. Stir together

2) Cook on low for 9 hours, or until meat shreds easily with a fork. Shred, then put meat back in the crockpot to cook on low for an additional hour.

3) Serve the meat on a split bun, topped with provolone cheese. Top with additional peppers and giardiniera.