Great Big Beautiful Life

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

I really wasn’t sure how to rate this book. Emily Henry is one of my favorite authors and what works here works really well, but at the same time I had some issues with the story.

Starting with what works well: as usual, Emily Henry is such a good writer. She can have me laughing out loud one moment and holding back tears the next. Alice is a great protagonist— I found her to be so likable and layered. Additionally, there are plenty of surprises that are fun to unravel.

Now, onto the critiques: There are so many moving pieces in Great Big Beautiful Life, and I think the story would’ve benefited from cutting some parts out and focusing in on certain, more integral elements. Some questions are still unanswered by the end of the novel, which is really frustrating. Additionally, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the love story, which was not the main focus of this novel but still big enough to matter.

This book left me with mixed feelings. I kind of feel like this book is categorized in the wrong genre, as the romance is more of a subplot. That's not inherently a bad thing as far as I'm concerned but it does mean you go into this book expecting one thing and getting a different thing.

I had a hard time liking Alice, she felt like such a boring stereotype for the majority of the book, though she did warm up to me at some point. Hayden, instead, must be one of the flattest characters I've ever seen. I simply did not care about him, so much that when the twist was revealed, I cared but from Margaret's point of view. Not Hayden's. And judging by his reaction, he himself didn't care much either. Can't blame him much, because it was a ridiculous twist. I think this would have worked a lot better had the author included Hayden's POV during his work with Margaret.

I was way more invested in Margaret's story than in Alice's. It was interesting and heartbreaking at times to see how an entire family was shaped by being in the public eye, harassed by the media, and by every person's own flaws and shortcomings.

The romance: I was not invested, did not care, didn't enjoy how it was built. First, these two barely talked to one another, it was just cringe-worthy physical interaction after cringe-worthy physical interaction. Second, the whole "we can't have sex until the job is over" thing is such a lame way to create drama. Not only was it stated over and over, not only did it end up being ridiculous because they were always doing *something* but "hey it doesn't count because that's not sex" (semantics, if you ask me), but then they also... waived this little rule of theirs like two days before the job was over?? With no conversation about it either. And then I was supposed to believe these two fell in deep sacred love in like three weeks and they both gave the job up and he decided to move wherever she wanted and ?? Not a fan.

I know it might sound like I hated it, I didn't, and to be fair some parts of the epilogue made me emotional. However, I can't help but feel that there was a lot of wasted potential. The book ends with Alice starting to write her family's story for her daughter, inspired by Margaret. The point is, I don't feel like I've seen much of Alice as a writer to care as much as the author wants me to care. Or of her family. There's a few interesting glimpses we get here and there, and the two scenes with her mother; I just wish it was explored more alongside Margaret's story. Heck, I wish Hayden was explored more, but the two were too busy having not sex.

All in all it was a nice read, the frustration comes from how much potential was left unexplored. It was fun to read this at the same time as my sister and have our own two-people book club.

This might be my favorite Emily Henry so far. my wife and I listen to them on road trips and I have enjoyed all I've listened to. (except funny story which I know is a hot take.)

they all give similar vibes, but they're also all different enough that it doesn't feel like you're reading the same book.

give it a read if you like the happy, funny, sometimes philosophically deep, emotional, but mostly happy books.

“Great Big Beautiful Life” by Emily Henry was promised to be just that: The love child of a well-known romance author, centring on two authors set against each other. The prize: To write a book about a famous socialite from a legendary family who disappeared and is shrouded in mystery.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, while this novel had high hopes of growing up to become Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”, a strong and bold story, “Life”’s story is immensely conventional. Whereas “Life” is “Dallas” or “Dynasty”, “Husbands” is “The Crown”.

Margaret Ives, our former socialite, has no special story to tell our authors. It’s just a rich-girl story with some drama and tragedy and some, very simplistic, family secrets.

Alice Scott, an author at a run-of-the-mill yellow press gossip magazine, senses the chance of a lifetime when she finds Margaret. Sadly, she just isn’t a very interesting or convincing character. She falls in love with her competitor, Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize winner, at first glance. Apart from the friction due to both being after the same job, there is practically no chemistry between them.

Hayden is portrayed as the typical “grumpy” love interest which is pretty much all he is throughout the entire novel. He hardly has any discernible character, and despite spending almost as much time with Margaret as Alice does, we never see his perspective. In stark contrast to the tediously detailed interviewing sessions between the two female leads, we’re told only sparingly about his own experiences.

Seemingly worried we might not understand the dual timelines of the narration, Henry plasters a huge “The Story” over every part that tells Margaret’s story (as narrated by Alice). What follows is a brief, one-sentence ‘Their version’ headline from the yellow press, and then a much longer “Her version”.

In between, we get encounters between Alice and Hayden, but most of the time they simply hold back or occasionally even push each other away. Their story is just as boring and superficial as all the family drama around Margaret is conventional, convoluted, and rarely believable.

The writing is typically Henry: adequate but nothing special. Compared to Henry’s romance novels, this one feels like she tried to write a romance/family story crossover, but thoroughly failed at both. Emily Henry is to Taylor Jenkins Reid what Katherine Heigl is to Meryl Streep: they may share a profession, but they are not in the same league.

Two stars out of five.

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam