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mishale1 's review for:
Great Big Beautiful Life
by Emily Henry
emotional
hopeful
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:
Complicated
I’m hit or miss on Emily Henry’s books. I loved the first couple, then a couple misses, then loved Funny Story and I’m smack dab in the middle with Great Big Beautiful Life.
Alice and Hayden are both vying for the chance to write a biography about Margaret Ives and the Ives family.
Margaret says she will let each of them interview her separately for a month and then she will decide who gets to write her story.
Alice and Hayden sign NDAs. They can’t talk to each other about their interviews.
Margaret has been a recluse for two decades and she has a lot of family history to discuss.
*A lot*
I think this went back to great-great-grandparents. I think this is where the book got slow for me. This book is over 400 pages long and I found myself thinking, this is an awful lot of family history, can we get to the exciting part?
Back to Hayden and Alice.
They start spending time together and fall for each other very quickly. But they keep saying they can’t be in a relationship because only one of them will get chosen to write the book. So that means the other one might be angry with them, or jealous, and it definitely means that they won’t be in the same town for long.
They plan to reassess their relationship when Margaret chooses who will write the book. But they can’t stay away from each other.
I enjoyed the love stories and some parts of the family history. I enjoyed the last 50 pages of the book a lot too. I think that’s when the pace picked up again.
Will I read the next Emily Henry? Of course, I’ll probably pre-order that one too. Bit I hope it’ll be more fast paced.
Alice and Hayden are both vying for the chance to write a biography about Margaret Ives and the Ives family.
Margaret says she will let each of them interview her separately for a month and then she will decide who gets to write her story.
Alice and Hayden sign NDAs. They can’t talk to each other about their interviews.
Margaret has been a recluse for two decades and she has a lot of family history to discuss.
*A lot*
I think this went back to great-great-grandparents. I think this is where the book got slow for me. This book is over 400 pages long and I found myself thinking, this is an awful lot of family history, can we get to the exciting part?
Back to Hayden and Alice.
They start spending time together and fall for each other very quickly. But they keep saying they can’t be in a relationship because only one of them will get chosen to write the book. So that means the other one might be angry with them, or jealous, and it definitely means that they won’t be in the same town for long.
They plan to reassess their relationship when Margaret chooses who will write the book. But they can’t stay away from each other.
I enjoyed the love stories and some parts of the family history. I enjoyed the last 50 pages of the book a lot too. I think that’s when the pace picked up again.
Will I read the next Emily Henry? Of course, I’ll probably pre-order that one too. Bit I hope it’ll be more fast paced.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief