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samanthamcantu 's review for:
Great Big Beautiful Life
by Emily Henry
“I welcome her to this great big beautiful life”
Marjorie - Taylor Swift
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That’s how we in this book, that line in reference to her daughter. A daughter we knew for two pages. About a life, we barely got to live. Alice Scott may have been the main character of this book, but I don’t know a thing about her life. I know a decent amount but I don’t feel like I know her, I spent 432 pages in her head and I couldn’t even tell you her favorite color. I feel like the real main character of this book was Margaret Ives, but she was just a means to an end. I wish I could say that I love this book, but I really don’t any that is extremely disappointing.
I have read a few emily Henry books and I have loved everything that I have read until this one. I’m not sure if she was just rushed when writing it or maybe just uninspired but it just wasn’t very good. I’m sad to say that because she has a very talented author Who has written beautiful books before. And the concept of this book was a very interesting one just poorly executed. I felt detach from the characters, and I felt that the main character was quite annoying, I was confused by the pacing of the book and and furthermore confused by the ending. how am I supposed to welcome their daughter into this world when I don’t even know much about them, that them being Allison and Hayden.
If the entirety of this book had felt like the last few chapters and we had learned more about Allison and Hayden then I think this would’ve been an extraordinary book. But the entire time we were focused on Margaret Ives, and I loved her even though I didn’t trust her , but she’s not the main character. I am honestly just so confused. The title is great big beautiful life, who’s life are we talking about Margaret or Alice‘s or everybody’s like I’m lost.
“I feel like you’re mine. Like you’re mine in a way no one else ever has been.”
Let It Happen - Gracie Abrams
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Then we come to the romance between our and Hayden, where in the world did this come from? I loved seeing them in love and at the end it felt like they were in love, but the rest of the book their dynamic confused me so much. They were exchanging all these words and being very intimate and very open with each other, but it still didn’t feel like they loved each other. And I appreciated Hayden‘s character much more than Alice’s but because I was seeing him through Alice‘s eyes, I didn’t really get to know him because she didn’t really know him. And then we end the book with him having a daughter? It just feels very rushed and not very well executed.
I wish I had more positive things to say about the romance because I love romance, I pick up books solely for the purpose of romance, and Emily Henry writes romance in such a wonderful way. She writes romance novels that feel more like a fiction novel because it focuses more on life and the plot is driven by the lives of these characters and not their pull to each other, sadly, this book didn’t have the Emily Henry touch of magic that the other ones do. I felt like the only thing holding me to this book was the romance and that’s not what I read Emily Henry for. It wasn’t even a good romance, but it was better than the rest of the book.
“You’re a human,” I say. “The machine can try to compress you into something two dimensional, digestible, but that’s not you. And we’re not here to service the machine.”
Last Great American Dynasty - Taylor Swift
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And now we come to the topic of Margaret Ives, who I felt was the true main character of this book. So much of the focus was on her, why not right a novel about this character? Why not write a fiction novel about a socialite, a tabloid princess, born into money with a sordid family history, and a famous husband? And I truly do understand why she didn’t do this, but I think it would’ve been better to have done this. Because in the end the way that she tried to tie it into the lives of Hayden and Alice and how it made Alice realize what a great big beautiful life she has was so poorly done. It would’ve been better off if Margaret’s life stood alone.
And Margaret could’ve been such a complex character, but I don’t think this book had a single complex character. It feels blasphemous to be criticizing. Emily Henry is writing, but I also know that she could do so much better than this. This felt like a money grab, it could’ve been so much better. It was such a beautiful concept and such a loud and proud name that I had such high expectations for it, which makes the come down that much worse.