Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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⭐ 3/5 Review: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry — When the “Slow Burn” Nearly Burns Out

👉 Grab your copy of Great Big Beautiful Life on Amazon here (affiliate link — thank you for supporting my blog!)

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⚠️ Trigger Warnings

• Mental illness

• Illness and death

• Sexual content

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🌸 Initial Thoughts

Man, this book dragged on and on and on — I was seriously starting to wonder if it was ever going to go anywhere. But here’s the good news: it does. Eventually. And when it finally does, it almost makes the wait worth it.

It’s like the plot crawled for 300 pages, then finally remembered it had somewhere to be 😅. I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out — that long, slow build actually made the few exciting moments feel extra intense when they finally happened. Not sure if that makes sense, but if you’ve read it, you know what I mean.

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🕵️‍♀️ Spoiler Warning — Full Plot Summary Below!

If you plan to read Great Big Beautiful Life and don’t want to know the ending, stop here. 👀

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🪞 Plot Summary (with Spoilers!)

Alice, an ambitious journalist in Los Angeles, gets the kind of lead every reporter dreams of: a tip about Margaret Ives, a long-reclusive heiress whose family name has been tabloid gold for decades. When Margaret actually agrees to speak with her (via an anonymous call, of course), Alice practically levitates out of her office chair.

Margaret invites Alice to her private estate on Little Crescent Island for an “interview competition” — a one-month trial period where two writers will vie for the chance to pen her official biography. But when Alice arrives, she finds she’s not alone. Her rival? None other than Hayden, a Pulitzer-winning journalist with a brooding personality and just enough arrogance to make him infuriating and attractive.

The island is small, the gossip smaller, and of course, sparks fly. Hayden and Alice’s chemistry builds slowly — painfully slowly — as they circle around professionalism, attraction, and the emotional baggage they both brought to the island. 🥀

Meanwhile, Margaret begins revealing her family’s scandal-filled history — affairs, fame, grief, and tragedy. She tells Alice about her glamorous but doomed marriage to rock star Cosmo Sinclair, her sister Laura’s involvement in a cult, and the mysterious child named Nicollet, tied to a secret her family has long buried.

But even as Margaret spills her story, something doesn’t add up. Both Hayden and Alice suspect she’s hiding a big piece of the puzzle. When the truth finally surfaces, it’s… well, let’s just say the “twist” doesn’t exactly shake the earth.

💥 Margaret is Hayden’s grandmother.
That’s the big reveal. She concocted the whole “competition” just to lure Hayden to the island and meet him.

Alice is furious — both at Margaret for manipulating them, and at herself for breaking the one big rule: don’t fall for your competition. She can’t even tell Hayden the truth because of a strict NDA. Instead, she walks away.

Later, Margaret finally does the right thing and writes Hayden a letter explaining everything — and includes Alice’s love letter to him. (Messy? Yes. Emotional? Also yes.) Hayden shows up at Alice's doorstep, letter in hand, and the two finally reunite.

By the end, Alice and Hayden move to Georgia to be near her mom, raise their baby girl (named Laura ❤️), and visit Margaret often. They even co-author Margaret’s biography. All’s well that ends mildly surprising.

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💭 My Thoughts

Here’s the thing — I love Emily Henry’s writing style. She has a way of capturing emotion, tension, and little details that make a setting come alive. But this one… just didn’t spark.

The mystery around the Ives family should’ve been riveting, but the pacing dragged so badly I had to convince myself to keep going. The big reveal? Interesting, but not the mic-drop moment I think Henry was aiming for.

The romance between Alice and Hayden was fine — predictable but cute. The payoff was sweet, though it took so long to get there I was practically cheering when something finally happened.

Overall, Great Big Beautiful Life is beautifully written and emotionally grounded, but way too slow and somewhat underwhelming. It had the potential to be something truly great — it just needed to get out of its own way.

⭐ Final Rating: 3 out of 5 — Mediocre but memorable.

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📚 If You Liked This Book, You Might Also Enjoy:

• The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller — another slow-burn emotional mystery with complicated family secrets.

• Every Summer After by Carley Fortune — for more slow-building romance and nostalgia.

• Happy Place by Emily Henry — if you want to see her at her best, this is the one.