This should surprise all of you who read my book reviews. I’m starting the year by recommending a novel. I know, I tend to shy away from them. But when mom says something it worthwhile, she is usually right.

She was correct in recommending Hello Beautiful (The Dial Press, 2023) by Ann Napolitano.

It’s a book about the lives of four sisters growing up in Chicago, their lives after high school, and life as adults. It involves deaths, births, weddings, and divorces. Intrigue surrounds lies, love, an attempted suicide and the test of familial bonds.

I didn’t ask mom if she thought any of her four girls were like the fictional characters. I couldn’t peg one of us for one of them. People aren’t that interchangeable.

But I digress.

I listened to the book in almost record time. I had eight days left before it was due back at the library. There are some books where I’m scrambling on the last day to finish. One I had to request again to finish listening. This definitely kept my attention and made me want to listen at night instead of actually reading the book on my nightstand.

A bit of the book is predictable, other parts not so much. That’s what kept me going.

It was a nice change to have something less serious occupying my time. That’s not to say there aren’t serious matters in the book. But knowing it’s all made up means needing to invest less emotion or worry about the outcome.