Emily Henry has become one of my favorite easy-read authors. Her characters are fun yet complex, and her story lines toe the line of trite while maintaining enough intrigue to have you ripping through the pages. Great Big Beautiful Life is no exception.
Alice Scott has tracked down the elusive Margaret Ives, the media mogul heiress who disappeared years before. She’s done the work, tracked Margaret down, secured the meeting which will hopefully lead to her big break, only to be confronted with Hayden Anderson, another writer who has turned up for the job. Pitted against each other in a month-long trial for the story of the century, Alice must break through Margaret’s walls while building up her own against Hayden.
This is a quintessential holiday read: easy to pick up, hard to put down, and thoroughly entertaining. I found myself interested in the various characters, each bringing something new to the table, and I was intrigued by the mystery of Margaret’s real story – the one the tabloids never got – and the contest of who would tell it.
My hesitation in ranking this higher than I have is that the amount of intimacy between Alice and Hayden (How could this possibly be a spoiler? Two leads isolated on a remote island in conflict from the beginning… come on.) feels overdone. At the beginning, I had actually found it refreshing that there was an emphasis on not sleeping together, as that seems to be a mainstay in this genre nowadays, however this resolve falls away as the story goes on and then it seems as though they can’t be alone together without physicality taking center stage. It’s not enough that I wouldn’t recommend the book, because I think the story has real merit, but it did knock a few points off the rating.
Overall, Great Big Beautiful Life is exactly what you’d expect it to be: cheery, endearing, light, and fun. I think it would be a worthwhile pick for any trip or lazy weekend.
2% Rating: 6.5/10
Recommend? If you’re a lover of this genre, yes
Re-Read? Probably not
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