Great Big Beautiful Life Review

Title: Great Big Beautiful Life
Author: Emily Henry
Release Date: Apr. 22, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Where to Buy: Amazon | Bookshop
My Rating: 4.0/5.0

Synopsis

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 20th 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.

My Review

Let me start by saying, I love Emily Henry books. Anything that she publishes is an instant pre-order for me. I know that I'm going to be pulled deeply into the story and that I will laugh (and typically cry). I think she is one of the best banter writers out there and that is extremely important to me.

Great Big Beautiful Life had a ton of pre-release buzz and then was even more conversation after people read the book. Frankly, a lot of readers didn't love the book. I think it is fair to say that this book read quite differently from Henry's past books, but importantly the hallmarks of Henry were there—witty banter, a romance trope (in this case black cat/golden retriever but the twist was she was the goldie and he the black cat), and the mandatory happily ever after. What was also uniquely Emily Henry was the setting and surrounding story. Two authors vying to be contracted as the official author of a memoir for a celebrity socialite, Margaret Ives, who eschewed the spotlight many years ago.

I did not dislike this book. In fact, I found it to be quite the page turner, because I just had to know what happened. What was it like growing up with the spotlight with a family of eccentric rich people? Why did she leave the spotlight? Why is she willing to step back into the spotlight and write a memoir now? As Henry always does, the characters were well-developed, whole people with their own motivations and baggage. The setting was so lovely. A small, beachy town in Georgia with lots of charm and character.

However, I can see why many felt disappointed in this book because frankly the romance felt much more like the b-plot of the story. I was way more invested in knowing the history of Margaret —her relationships, her decisions, her tribulations. The romance was there, Alice and Hayden certainly had chemistry and the building of their relationship was well done. The barriers to their relationship were legitimate. They did not feel contrived just for the plot. I was rooting for them to figure thing out the whole time.

It just wasn't the most interesting or dominant part of the story. Instead the memoir writing was. Frankly I think part of the frustration was readers going into it like this was going to be a standard romance, when it was actually more of a fiction story with a b-plot romance. Is it possible that I (and others) just made assumptions because it an Emily Henry book so of course it was going to be a phenomenal beach read romcom? Likely. Was this a marketing issue? Should they have marketed it as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo with some witty romance and a couple spicy scenes? Possibly. Regardless, it was well marketed as un-put-downable.