Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
Contemporary Romance
April 22, 2025 by Berkley
ARC

Review by Angela

Anybody who knows my reading tastes knows I really enjoy anything Emily Henry writes. I will even admit to emailing this publisher about advanced reading copies when I couldn’t find the ARC anywhere on the usual sites. So, when it finally hit my Kindle, I was overjoyed and eager to read.

Great Big Beautiful Life is a romance sandwiched between the story of a powerful family. The love story of two writers competing to author the biography of a famous woman from a scandalous family who seemingly disappeared from the public eye years before.

When Alice Scott tracks down the whereabouts of Margaret Ives, she’s excited to not only meet her, but get the chance to get the story behind the rise and fall of the Ives family. What is the real story behind the headlines? She doesn’t realize she’ll be competing for the honor against Pulitzer Prize winning biographer, Hayden Anderson. Given a one-month trial period to interview Margaret and impress her with their ideas, Hayden and Alice are essentially stuck together in the small town. She’s quirky and positive, he’s staid and grumpy. But they are drawn together, nonetheless.

I think this is going to be one of those books that people will either really, really like, or really, really dislike. It’s told in a way that the romance kind of takes a backseat to the backstory of the Ives family. I know I looked forward to the moments when Alice interviewed Margaret and her family’s history unfolded. I DID enjoy the two main characters and their building relationship. I DID enjoy their chemistry and their grumpy/sunshine personalities. I also kind of wish there was just a tad bit more focus on them versus Margaret Ives. I don’t know if I would call it women’s fiction, but it definitely straddles the line.

Don’t get me wrong, I ate this book up because I love this author’s writing. I love her characters. Hayden and Alice are well-drawn and interesting. I liked the tropes- adversaries to lovers, close proximity, and grumpy/sunshine. I enjoyed the way the author connected Margaret’s life story to the romance at the end. But I also think essentially telling two different stories kind of takes the emphasis off the main romance. The romance itself suffers from only having one POV, especially given the revelations at the end about Hayden and why he was invited to be one of the biographers.

While this isn’t my favorite Emily Henry book, I did enjoy my afternoon with Alice and Hayden (and the Ives family).

Grade- B-