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Book Reviewed by:Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry.
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they're both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she'll choose the person who'll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice's head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She's ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can't swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they're in the same room.
And it's becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret's spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad ... depending on who's telling it.
Chapter One
Chapter One
There's an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine, and the truth. The guy who first said it worked in the film business, but it holds true for journalism too.
We're not really supposed to take sides. We're supposed to deal in facts. Facts add up to truth.
Fact: Robert Evans—producer, studio exec, and actor, who coined that catchy mantra about the truth—was married seven times.
Fact: I, Alice Scott—staff writer for The Scratch, aspiring biographer, not much else—am not even officially the girlfriend of the man I've been dating for seven months.
Fact: At five feet and nine inches tall, Robert Evans was the exact same height as I am.
Fact: My entire life is quite possibly about to change, and instead of sprinting up the walkway to the quaint picket fence separating me from a lifelong dream, I'm sitting in my rental car, blasting air-conditioning and reading the IMDb page of a man whose name I'd never ...
Emily Henry regards love as a worthy element and intrinsic part of a meaningful life, passed down in various permutations and impacting generations. Shining an unwavering spotlight on love through all her previous romance novels, Henry doubles down in Great Big Beautiful Life, rendering the power of love with a bigger paintbrush and a larger canvas. The book's premise is that two journalists, Alice and Hayden, are competing for the chance to write the biography of the elusive and enigmatic Margaret Ives, one-time heiress of a dynastic media empire. What emerges from this arrangement is a story-within-a-story structure that delves into the many loves and lives of Margaret's family, while also exploring the leads' budding romance and the individual issues each must work through before they can enter into a healthy, functional, lasting relationship...continued
Full Review
(617 words)
(Reviewed by Tasneem Pocketwala).
B.K. Borison, New York Times bestselling author of First Time Caller
A sweeping love story about the choices we make and the threads that knit us together. Thoughtful, moving, and deliciously tender. Emily Henry is as captivating as ever. I love everything she does. Kaliane Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry of Time
A true joy. Playful, fun, and virtuosically plotted, Great Big Beautiful Life is a novel about life's winding paths and dangerous dead-ends—and the way that love can lead us out of the labyrinth.
In many ways, Emily Henry's Great Big Beautiful Life is about the complex bond between mothers and daughters that prompts mothers to act in strange, counterintuitive ways. While the novel is quite unabashedly a romance, thoroughly embracing the genre's tropes, it is much more than a happy, breezy read with a satisfying end. Going against the grain of a run-of-the-mill romance that might avoid deep exploration of dark territories like parental expectations and strained mother-daughter relationships, Great Big Beautiful Life incorporates these complex themes into its plot.
Many other romance novels, such as the three listed below, have done the same. These novels include some of the genre's typical tropes — fake boyfriend, holiday ...
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There is no worse robber than a bad book.
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