kaedau 's review for:

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

4.5

emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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⭐️ 4.5 stars ⭐️

I loved this. LOVED this. The romance between Alice and Hayden checked ALLLL of my boxes, and I’m obsessed with their story.

I completely understand the criticisms of this book, however. I could have gone without “The Story” sections and just had Alice actively have/recap her conversations with Margaret in scenes instead of the biography inserts (which EH did anyways in some scenes). The inserts felt out of place to me when, in my head, the book should have focused solely on Alice and Hayden because !!!!

Ultimately, “The Story” struggled to hold my attention at times, and it hurts to say, but that half a star loss is for it.

But can we return to Alice and Hayden??? Grumpy/sunshine perfection for me. They reminded me A LOT of my own relationship with my fiancé (I’m the golden retriever to her black cat, and I love her endlessly for her idiosyncrasies). I was a full sucker for how Alice and Hayden fell in love with each other. Yes, I know they know each other for less than a month, but I don’t care! I FELT how much they loved each other. And boy, did I love the “forbidden”-ish aspect of this. Ate it up. Gobbled it all. Plate licked clean. I re-read the scenes between them more than once (dare I say in one instance six times) because I wanted to crawl inside the book and live in those scenes.