Great Big Beautiful Life

By: Emily Henry

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK ∙ AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ∙ Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry.

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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 twentieth 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.

Enjoyed it until the silly ending

A light enjoyable read, though the protagonist seems quite immature and lacking in substance for her age. I wish authors would quit with the contrived conflict--namely, when the protagonist manufactures a stupid reason to get mad at the guy she's madly in love with. This author brought on all the rom-com cliches in the end.

Julia Whelan's performance is perfection, as always.

Entertaining- a little bit of everything!

This book was entertaining. I actually enjoy a mystery and if there’s romance thrown in, even better. I read several reviews on Audible and goodreads and I disagree that this story doesn’t belong in the romance genre. I thought Alice’s and Hayden’s relationship was convincing and, while a bit fast tracked, they were in a fairly unique situation- two good looking people with a career in common who are isolated in a small town with no other friends and they’ve signed NDAs that made talking about the one other thing going on in their lives impossible. If we can all suspend belief that any of these storybook main characters are single, then I can certainly believe these two opposites would be attracted to each other given the intense conditions.

I have listened twice this week and I still don’t understand the title. Did I miss a reference to it earlier in the story? I certainly heard the last sentence but there’s a disconnect for me between the story (stories) and the title. Something like “Yours, Mine and the Truth” seems more apropos to me and might have given all the haters a heads up that there was more to the story than just two people canoodling and sleeping together for 35 chapters.

Amazing

I rarely feel so deeply for characters in a book but the descriptive technique of the writer was INCREDIBLE.

Julia Whelan is the queen of narration

My favorite Emily Henry to date. Julia Whelan once again absolutely kills it with the narration, I will literally listen to any book she narrates. 10/10

So so good

Couldn’t put it down. One of her best yet! And Julia is one of my favorites. Exceptional writing and narration.