Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Stora vackra liv by Emily Henry

135 reviews

emotional lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

I LOVE Emily Henry’s writing - DO NOT GET ME WRONG… but this one was not my fav.

In other Emily Henry’s books, the central plot IS the love story, and the subplots are about work or friendships, or family. In this story, the actual romance felt more like a subplot to me. It wasn’t Hayden and Alice’s story. It was Margaret’s (the lying old lady). The two storylines felt like they were competing for page time and the flip flopping pace wasn’t great. It felt like two separate books mashed together. 

I did love the storytelling of Margaret’s life when it got to the interesting parts, but I wasn’t a fan of her “telling her story” but not being fully truthful and wasting these journalists time. Not cool, Peggy. Not cool. 

I actually didn’t like Margaret in the end. She sucks. The manipulative old wench. She was quite selfish in her endeavours and I don’t know how they forgave her and wrote her story for her anyways. Kind of wish they touched on that redemption arc a little more rather than just stating it happened. 

Happy that Alice and Hayden got a happy ending though! Probs wouldn’t name my baby after an aunt I never knew that was an ex-cult member, but whatevs, it’s their baby! Good for them! 

No matter what, I’ll always love and treasure the beauty that is Emily Henry’s writing. She could write a refrigerator manual and I’d read it.

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challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Another real, emotional- yet uplifting and hopeful- romance from Emily Henry. She’s a must read author for me, so I was expecting it to be great. Something about this one just blew me away, though. It’s slightly reminiscent of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but still distinctly its own story and flavor to the idea of telling the untold story of someone the world thinks they know.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Not my favorite Emily Henry book (I’ve now read all of them), but I liked how she took a chance to do something different. I personally don’t think the story was unique enough to grab my complete attention, but it had some lovely moments and the ending was really well done. Also screw you Julia Whelan for making me emotional from your beautiful narration.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

close enough, welcome back Pride & Prejudice 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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