Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

With Sisters Like These

Hello, Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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William Waters’s birth is followed almost immediately by the death of his older sister, a shocking loss which traumatizes his parents and leaves unwilling or unable to raise their son with any love or affection. Finding consolation on the basketball court, William eventually makes his way to Northwestern University on an athletic scholarship. There he meets, or more accurately, is confronted by, Julia Padavano, a fellow student who has taken a fancy to him and has decided they should date. Before Will knows what has […]

We’re not separated from the world by our own edges.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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CBR15 PASSPORT (Stamp #7: New to me author) CBR15 BINGO (Adulthood square: four sisters figuring out their shit) This book has been touted as a re-telling of Little Women. If you squint a little, I guess it works. It is a book about complicated relationships between four sisters with a domineering mother and a mostly absent father (although not physically absent). Napolitano does even reference Little Women as the sisters try to figure out which Alcott sister they represent. Unlike the classic sisters though, Napolitano’s characters […]

You say goodbye, I say hello

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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CBR Passport – new to me author (which I think makes this my 6th official CBR passport author that I’ve counted, but in reality the 13th or 14th new author I’ve read this year, I might have to go back and do some updated accounting). I will never turn down an homage to Little Women. Although I have 5 sisters, giving us two extra girls to account for, we loved the act of assigning ourselves a character. On TV, there’s Golden Girls, Sex and the City, […]

Well at least this isn’t apocalyptic

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

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SIGH. So this book is good, it’s really good. BUT CAN I HAVE A BOOK ABOUT HAPPY PUPPIES DURING THIS CHAOS? Like, every book I’ve read lately has been heartbreaking, and this is no exception. It’s fairly telling that my review is “whew, only a plane full of people died instead of threatening the whole world.” We follow Edward, the sole survivor of a plane crash that has killed his entire nuclear family, and his acclimation to life after. Napolitano writes believably about Edward’s depression, […]



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