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gemsliterarygems 's review for:
Great Big Beautiful Life
by Emily Henry
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
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:
Complicated
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death, Death of parent
Alice Scott and Hayden Anderson have both been invited to potentially write the life story of Margaret Ives, the reclusive heiress to a media empire. Her life was always in the news until she dropped off the face of the Earth and wasn't seen again in public for years. Now Alice has tracked her down and is hearing her story whilst competing with Hayden to turn it into a book. Alice's late Dad was a massive fan of rockstar Cosmo Sinclair, to whom Margaret was famously married and so she is desperate to find out the true story that her journalist father would have wanted to know. Hayden, on the other hand, is fresh from winning a Pulitzer for his previous memoir and on paper is the better person for the job. Over several weeks, Margaret tells her tale while in the background Hayden and Alice get to know each other and of course the forced proximity helps sparks to fly.
Now, if you've read Emily Henry's novels before you'll know that she writes romances with a hint of spice. But this is more like an Emily Henry novel twinned with a Taylor Jenkins Reid. It has the mystery of Margaret's story and why she has chosen to speak now, the intrigue of what she's not telling Alice and the golden age of Hollywood and Elvis at the heart of it all. It's much more like Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo with a side of romance from 2 supporting characters than anything else, and it is honestly fabulous. I adored it!