Within Arm’s Reach follows the McLaughlin clan, an Irish-American family living in New Jersey.  The story is told through the lens of six different characters representing three different generations-- Catharine, Lila, Kelly, Noreen, Louis, and Gracie.

Lila is a medical student who is highly respected within the family.  At the cusp of her graduation from medical school, she has drive and success.  What she doesn’t have is happiness.  One day, she meets a man who should be unattractive to her in every way.  However, will his quiet self-assurance change the trajectory of her life?

Meanwhile, Gracie, Lila’s sister, has lived life to the fullest.  She is currently working as a reporter for the local newspaper when she finds out she is pregnant.  Single, unmarried, and alone, she is dreading telling her VERY Irish-Catholic family about the baby.  What she does not realize is that she has an unlikely ally.

Noreen Ballen is a nurse at the local hospital.  She has been caring for the matriarch of the McLaughlin family, Catharine, since she was admitted.  What she doesn’t know is that she has been stalked for the last couple of years by Louis, Kelly McLaughlin’s husband, who feels responsible for the death of Noreen’s husband.  Noreen slowly begins to realize the ties she has to the McLaughlin clan.

Ann Napolitano has created a vast array of characters that are both loving and complicated, caring and impatient, and loyal and flawed.  Then, she weaved their stories together to form a realistic and beautiful family tree.  The book was a little on the long side, and at times it dragged along.  It goes to show how much Napolitano has grown as an author over the years.  Still, I enjoyed exploring each character’s inner turmoil and found myself rooting for every single one of them. Within Arm’s Reach is yet another example of why Napolitano’s books are an automatic buy from me.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed this book, however, was no Dear Edward. It was much better than Hello Beautiful which was so hard for me to follow and invest in. I was invested in the characters in "Within Arm's Reach" and liked the plot development. It just fell flat in the end. I feel like Napolitano's book covers are prettier than the book is interesting. After two books, I won't be running out to get a fourth book of hers.

Within Arm's Reach explores the complexities of the dynamics of a multigenerational Irish-American family. Unfortunately, I was rather underwhelmed by the story and rather overwhelmed by the large cast and their POVs. This book felt SO long and I found it a chore to get through it.

I've been a fan of Ann Napolitano for a number of years and was excited to read the re-release of her first novel. I expected it to be more "rough" than her later works but was excited to see how her writing has evolved. And it has, but here I found all of the qualities that make me love her: finely drawn, complicated characters, relatable situations and plots, and love that is real, messy, and a bit dysfunctional. I loved this novel, and it rings true for many from families that have love for each other, but fall short in how it gets expressed. I love how she peels back the layers of her characters, letting us see and experience what those in their lives have no clue about. And I really enjoyed the author's note at the end about writing, her process, and how this story came to life. Although this re-release has received some not so great reviews, this was a 5 star for me! Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House [The Dial Press Paperback] for an eARC of "Within Arm's Reach" by Ann Napolitano in exchange for an honest review. I wanted to pick up this book after hearing great things about her other book "Hello Beautiful," which I enjoyed and shows the writing growth. I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read about the complexities of family dynamics in multiple POVs.

I'm surprised to learn that this book did not get much love when it was first published and now republished post Napolitano's success with other books. Her storytelling and themes that she touches upon are not too different than her latest "Hello Beautiful". It's similar type of family drama with deep characters containing layers of their times covering them.

This Irish Catholic family was not good with feelings and unpleasantness. They (older generations) would hate to have their dirty laundry out in front of everyone. Also, Catholic guilt was strong with them. Whereas younger generation was more okay with failure, shouting it from the rooftops, and pregnancy outside marriage. When four generations (with various degrees of willingness to change) were trying to find the middle ground to keep their family together, it became the hardest job all of them ever had to do.

I'm glad that publishers decided to give it another go to this book. I felt like it was something she wrote right Hello Beautiful instead of years ago. I like the way Napolitano takes her time to build these characters while giving you all the side stories and reasons to show why they are the way they are.

Ann Napolitano is one of my absolute favorite authors, with both "Hello Beautiful" and "Dear Edward" being two of my favorite books of all time, so I was ecstatic to read one of her backlist titles, Within Arm's Reach. This is her debut novel that shares the same beautiful storytelling of both of the novels I mentioned previously. I loved the parallels between the sisters in Hello Beautiful and the McLaughlin family in Within Arm's Reach as well as the depictions of grief in this novel and Dear Edward.

This is the story of three generations in an Irish Catholic family and the ripples from a crisis of an unexpected pregnancy. I love a family drama and this one delivered and tackled upholding tradition, rivalries, grudges, and communication struggles so well, Overall, this book is missing the polish of Napolitano's most recent novels but has gorgeous descriptive language, well developed (but too many IMO), and writing that evokes such emotion regarding the human experience and the complexities of family dynamics.

This book traces three generations of an Irish-American family and how they communicate with each other. The love is there, but all of them have difficulty expressing their feelings. It’s a thoughtful look at how people are raised affect them as adults. I found it very interesting and thought provoking.

Also reviewed on B&N (1IrishEyes430) and Kobo (IrishEyes430)

Spellbinding
Stunning
Skillfully written

This is a family drama that is compelling to read about - an Irish family in New Jersey told in multiple POVs which I thought was brilliant.

Highly recommend

Having thoroughly enjoyed Hello Beautiful, I was excited to dive into Within Arm's Reach. Unfortunately, I found myself a bit underwhelmed. I struggled to connect with the characters. With a large cast and a narrative that felt scattered, the story was challenging to follow and didn’t quite meet my expectations. Napolitano is still an auto-read author for me, and I can't wait to read whatever she writes next!

After reading Hello Beautiful I was very excited to read Ann Napolitano’s first novel. The themes in this work are so similar to Hello Beautiful and her ability to weave together a be voices of family members who each have their own struggles and try and fail to love one another well is amazing. She is truly gifted in writing, in few words, whole complex and interesting characters. Although I can see the growth in her writing since having published this, I still wholly enjoyed this. Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

I love reading and reviewing anything by Ann Napolitano. I make sure, I have a good amount of time to read these books. It always pulls at the heartstrings how we live and communicate with the ones we love. Or for that matter how we are unable to communicate with the ones that are closest to us. The story is about three generations of Irish Americans. The love, the loss, the ties that bind and everything that makes and breaks the family. The writing is absolutely beautiful, and the characters are so flawed. The fact that they are so human is a testament to Anne’s writing. You may never have a family dynamic like this one, but boy do you think you could. Within Arms Reach is another one of Ann’s fabulous novels. I just love everything about them and when I finish the book, I am so sad to see the characters go. But the ending is the way it should be and that is another one of Ann’s talents. I want to think NetGalley, Random Publishing House Group, and the author for my copy for an honest review. It was my pleasure to read and review this book, I hope you enjoy it, as much as I did.

I was so grateful to receive a copy of this book from Ann Napolitano (who wrote Hello Beautiful) via NetGalley. I read through the whole book before I realized it was a re-release of her first novel that she published in 2004! Her readers were trying to find more copies of her earlier books after the success of her recent novels and so her publisher re-released it- how cool is that?! Within Arms Reach is the story of an Irish Catholic family in New Jersey told from the point of view of three generations- grandmother, mother and two daughters/sisters as their family deals with an unexpected pregnancy and their grandmother aging. I really loved the way it was written and the story. If you have been a fan of other Ann Napolitano books, I would suggest going back to her debut!

The cast was a bit large and the story fell a little flat for me, but I've heard such amazing things about her two other novels, so I can't wait to read more from Napolitano. Thank you NetGalley for the eARC

Within Arms Reach by Ann Napolitano ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this advanced reader copy!🤗

“The old woman doesn’t look surprised or even sympathetic when she says that, and I find myself thinking, not for the first time, Boy, she’s a hard one.”

The McLaughlin women are a force to be reckoned with. With their Irish Catholic strength - and guilt - they are proud, resilient, and stubborn. This novel follows the McLaughlin women through the messy, complicated, beauty of life. There is Catherine, the matriarch, who is watching her children and granddaughters navigate life, and quite clumsily, she might add. There is Kelly, her oldest daughter, whose marriage is on the rocks and she is beginning her midlife crisis journey. There are Lila and Grace, her granddaughters, who are both living lives that they are not in control of.

In a similar style to Hello Beautiful, this novel is not action-packed. It slowly unravels and reveals characters who are flawed and complicated and deeply human. It is about people and relationships and family. It is about the ties that bind us - for better or worse - and the complexities of love.

This novel was released on April 30th, 2024 and I definitely recommend it!

I wanted so badly to love this book, as I am a massive fan of "Dear Edward" and "Hello Beautiful." I do realize that this is a reissue of the very first book she had published, and you can see the drastic improvement almost immediately upon beginning this one. I didn't know how to root for a family that was content to sit and mope around in their depressed states. Every single one of the main characters were sad, whiny, and had zero perspective on reality. I also had a lot of trouble with the family being SO VERY OFFENDED about a 29 year old woman being pregnant and, heaven forbid, not being married. If it had been set in Mormon Utah or the Deep Christian South, that's one thing. But it was in New Jersey.

A multigenerational novel about a large Irish American family in New Jersey. The matriarch and Six of her family are the main characters. Multiple themes-sibling rivalry, child abuse, a grandchild pregnant and unmarried, marital difficulties and betrayal, and mental illness. The book is long and the reader really does need the “ flow chart” provided by the author to keep the characters straight.The writing was just okay (not of the level of her other works-DEAR EDWARD and HELLO BEAUTIFUL) and I thought the ending left the reader hanging with too many unresolved issues.
Okay-but just okay.

While I really enjoyed the author's writing style, I found it difficult to track all of the different characters in the book as we jumped around so many perspectives. What I did love, though, was the perspectives from the different generations as I felt that they were distinguished very well.

“Within Arm’s Reach” by Ann Napolitano is a stunning debut novel that delves into the multigenerational dynamics of an Irish-American family. Narrated through six distinct voices, it skillfully explores themes of guilt versus loyalty, the past versus the present, all while maintaining a hopeful tone and sprinkling in moments of humor and wit. A rich and multi-faceted character study, this book weaves together overlapping viewpoints, revealing the complexities of family relationships

Another feel good novel from Napolitano. This novel relates the story of three generations of a family told through six narrators.