I have several Emily Henry books in my collection that I haven’t read. When the Great Big Beautiful Life released in April, I wasn’t really racing to read it.
For one thing, the title wasn’t too appealing to me. Great Big Beautiful Life sounds entirely too similar to the One Big Beautiful Bill to me and I didn’t really want to research whether I need to write off another writer from my library. I am still unsure if there is a relationship between the two, but I’m happy to report that I’m not the only one who thought the titles sounded entirely too similar. I did finally dive in, in between rereading The Perks of Being a Wallflower and finally reading a Room of One’s Own.
Table of Contents
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
Synopsis
Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life follows Alice Scott, a journalist who sought out Margaret Ives in order to write her biography. Margaret has had a long history in the spotlight, not only for her familial associations, but also based on her own merit. Margaret Ives left the spotlight for a life of normality.
Alice was able to find her after an in-depth investigation, she was excited to be doing something that would finally impress her mother. When she arrived, she was surprised to find that she wasn’t the only contender for the writing opportunity. In comes Hayden Anderson, a Pulitzer-winning author who seemed to be at an advantage from the start. The story follows the tension between not only Alice and Hayden, but also increased strain as they compete for Margaret Ives’ approval.
Thoughts and Things
I cried. Maybe not giant sobs like when I read If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin or the sadness of feeling so much like a character when I read Sally Rooney’s Normal People. But tears came down nonetheless. Tears as I was attempting to work out in the morning, completely unexpected and out of the blue.
I couldn’t immediately remember what part of Great Big Beautiful Life this came from. I was looking back at my highlighted passages, I realized that it was more of a profound sadness relating to Alice’s relationship with her mother. The inability to relate, the lack of understanding between the relationship, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
In a way, that’s what surprised me about this book. The overall plot was typically of a novel in the romance category, the love more so assumed. The side story of being incapable to appropriately communicating was what really resonated.
Reese’s Book Club
At the same time, I probably should have known that I would at least like this book. It was included in Reese Witherspoon’s book club, which hasn’t let me down yet. I can’t remember whether I read Untamed by Glennon Doyle before or after it was picked by the book club, but I know that I have trusted her picks ever since.
A Little Goodreads Update
Unfortunately I can’t help but continue to use Goodreads. I have tried using Fable but I was entirely too lazy to shift my collection over. I’m currently trying out Storygraph, and I’m hoping that I’m able to actually shift to that. It has a lot of features that are not offered on Goodreads. Goodreads really does make it so easy to have all my highlights in one place and keep track of the books that I have read, especially when I use my Kindle.
If I look up Great Big Beautiful Life on my Goodreads, my highlights are available (albeit tricky to get to at times). I did buy a Kobo Libra Colour recently and I am unsure how I’m going to attempt to keep track of it.
Anyways, as far as my Goodreads reading challenge, I am at 81 out of 125 books! I’m pretty proud about that number. Especially since I only read 54 books last year. Some recent favorites include One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad and The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali.
Final Thoughts
Should you read Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry? Short answer, yes. If you enjoy romance, then of course you should! Will this change your perspective in life? Depends on you, I guess. I do think that it is a good book to add to mix especially when you have been attempting to read really heavy books. It is fast-paced, easy to consume. It has a subplot that broke my heart, and yes, you should at least try it out. Use the library, libraries across the United States definitely need your support at the moment.
