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A Little Hope by Ethan Joella

Contemporary fiction

A Little Hope

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Ethan Joella, on your first book!

by Ethan Joella

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Quick Take

An ode to the beauty of the everyday, this novel traces the losses, loves, and dreams of a small Connecticut town.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Emotional

    Emotional

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Inspirational

    Inspirational

  • Illustrated icon, Sad

    Sad

Synopsis

In the small city of Wharton, Connecticut, lives are beginning to unravel. A husband betrays his wife. A son struggles with addiction. A widow misses her late spouse. At the heart of these interlinking stories is one couple: Freddie and Greg Tyler.

Greg has just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a brutal form of cancer. He intends to handle this the way he has faced everything else: through grit and determination. But can Greg successfully overcome his illness? How will Freddie and their daughter cope if he doesn’t? How do the other residents of Wharton learn to live with loss, and find happiness again?

An emotionally powerful debut that immerses the reader into a community of friends, family, and neighbors, A Little Hope celebrates the importance of small moments of connection and the ways that love and forgiveness can help us survive even the most difficult of life’s challenges.

Why I love it

In A Little Hope, a heartfelt, life-affirming novel, we follow the many stories of the inhabitants of a small Connecticut town. Each chapter is devoted to someone new—a woman whose husband has just been diagnosed with cancer, her husband’s high-powered boss and his illegitimate child, a local business owner with ties to everyone in the community, and more. If this all sounds dizzying, it is all the more testament to the excellent writing that seamlessly blends these stories together.

At the heart of it, this is a novel about the resiliency of love and the human spirit. We love each other, love who is left, love who we can, and do the best we can do, however that may be possible. This does not mean that we aren't changed, of course, and we see into the minds of those who have lost and see the scars that are left and how they persevere. Especially after the bruising last eighteen months, which, I suspect, have left us all looking for connection and meaning, this felt especially relatable.

What I love about this book is its emotional truths—at times deeply sad, the novel is simultaneously soothing as it speaks honestly of the everyday celebrations and tragedies of each character’s life. The author captures so well what it is like to be young, to get married for the first time, to lose your first love, and to find your head spinning at having lost the freedom and carelessness of your 20s. It is a beautiful novel, and as the title suggests, its moving characters and beautiful writing might just give you a little hope.

Other books by Ethan Joella

Contemporary fiction
The Last Love Note
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Interesting Facts about Space
The Villain Edit
Bye, Baby
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
How to Read a Book
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
A Summer Affair
Adelaide
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Evil Eye
Maame
Advika and the Hollywood Wives
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
Olga Dies Dreaming
If Only I Could Tell You
How Lucky
My Dark Vanessa
Nine Perfect Strangers
Honey Girl
One Italian Summer
Eight Hundred Grapes
The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes
The Five-Star Weekend
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Nest
Rich and Pretty
Britt-Marie Was Here
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Startup
The Identicals
The Dinner List
Goodbye, Paris
Winter in Paradise
A Woman Is No Man
Queenie
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Beyond the Point
What Happens in Paradise
Nothing to See Here
When We Were Vikings
Anxious People
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Removed
The Kindest Lie
Good Company
Impostor Syndrome
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket
Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Interesting Facts about Space
The Villain Edit
Bye, Baby
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
How to Read a Book
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
A Summer Affair
Adelaide
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Evil Eye
Maame
Advika and the Hollywood Wives
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
Olga Dies Dreaming
If Only I Could Tell You
How Lucky
My Dark Vanessa
Nine Perfect Strangers
Honey Girl
One Italian Summer
Eight Hundred Grapes
The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes
The Five-Star Weekend
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Nest
Rich and Pretty
Britt-Marie Was Here
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Startup
The Identicals
The Dinner List
Goodbye, Paris
Winter in Paradise
A Woman Is No Man
Queenie
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Beyond the Point
What Happens in Paradise
Nothing to See Here
When We Were Vikings
Anxious People
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Removed
The Kindest Lie
Good Company
Impostor Syndrome
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket