When William Waters meets Julia Padavano, he falls in love with the entire Padavano family, and so did I. Napolitano reportedly took inspiration from Little Women for this book about four sisters in Chicago, and as a reader with no sisters and only two boring brothers, I was fully along for the ride.
Napolitano, who also wrote the heartbreaking Dear Edward, writes lyrically about love and loss, hurt and forgiveness. In rotating perspectives, we follow William, Julia, her sister Sylvie, and William’s daughter Alice as their bonds deepen, break, and tentatively stitch together again.
If you love family stories as much as I do, this is one of the best.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes a poignant and engrossing family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?
“Hello Beautiful is exactly that: beautiful, perceptive, wistful. It’s a story of family and friendship, of how the people we are bound to can also set us free. I loved it.”—Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman…
The premise of this speculative fiction is simple but wild: in the near future, “criminals” are given an extra shadow that follows them wherever they go, rain or shine. The narrator, a Shadester named Kris, is a new mother whose wife Beau has died in childbirth, earning their daughter her very own automatic shadow assignment.
The story is told in gorgeous experimental prose, a mix of letters to Beau, pop quizzes, shopping lists, and short vignettes that trace the contours of queer love, parenting, shame, and resistance. As the “squish-faced kid” butterflies into a fiery teen, she and Kris find their footing and voice alongside an extended family of fellow misfits.
This is a book for anyone who takes their politics with a dash of kink and a shot of hope and humor.
Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state
In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections.
When I finished this book, I immediately told all my close friends to read it so we could discuss. At year’s end, it’s the book I’ve recommended most. This is a quick, juicy, sometimes infuriating read, and I could not put it down.
Jess is a Black liberal from Nebraska, starting her first post-college job at Goldman Sachs. Josh is her white, conservative coworker from Connecticut and a former thorn in her side from undergrad.
Watching these two opposites attract during the Obama-Trump transition was the most fun I ever had (the banter is top-notch) and had me squirming with its hyper-realistic portrayal of America’s political polarization. Will Jess and Josh’s love survive, or will it suffer death by a thousand microaggressions? Everything’s Fine is a romance wrapped in an enigma.
It’s the Hollywood event of the season, and anyone who’s anyone will be enjoying their evening at socialite Holly Stabler’s gorgeous hilltop estate. For personal assistant Zanne Klein, the gala is her chance at a promotion she’s chased for far too long, which means she’ll finally be able to buy a house, pay off her loans, and give her girlfriend the life she deserves.
But just when the perfect party seems to be in reach, Phoebe Lee, a talented director who mysteriously disappeared decades before, shows up uninvited—with a dark secret.
As the event unfolds and truths are exposed, Zanne, Holly, and Phoebe are set on a collision course that promises to make the night one Hollywood will never forget.
