Both novels are anchored by warm, boisterous families whose ambitious, artistic sisters’ relationships change with the arrival of a love interest.
Early on in Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful, the 100th pick for Oprah’s Book Club , Julia Padavano and her three sisters debate their similarities to the March sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women. Both novels are anchored by warm, boisterous families whose ambitious, artistic sisters’ relationships change with the arrival of a love interest. In Hello Beautiful, it’s William, a stoic college basketball player who marries Julia; in Little Women, it’s Laurie, the neighbor’s grandson, who proposes to aspiring writer Jo before marrying her sister, Amy. If you need more convincing about the parallels between the two, watch this.