Book Review: Great Big Beautiful Life

Spoilers!

Love is the everything. It’s the why of how we make and unmake the world to make anew. Beginnings and endings don’t matter as much as the journey, however brief and beautiful, because of love. Emily Henry’s books are always about love in all its expressions — lovely, goofy smile happy, lusty, comical, absurd, fiery, along with heartbreaking, lonely, yearning, regrets, pain, grief, and ultimately ephemeral, no matter what the calendar or clock actually says — but it’s in her 2025 book, Great Big Beautiful Life, where Henry reaches the apex of her powers and thoughts about love (at least for now!). Great Big Beautiful Life simmers and crackles with Henry’s characteristic whimsy, humor, quick-witted dialogue, and chemistry between her characters, who are as well-developed as ever, but also, with such palpable love in all its machinations, from familial to platonic to parental to romantic, that my brain is still whirring after finishing. Henry just gets what makes all those relationships tick, the ebbs and flows, and the intangibles within.

Alice is a journalist for a magazine, much to her hippie save-the-world mother’s chagrin seeing it as akin to being a celebrity gossip-hound, and she’s chasing a dream job, a biography about Margaret Ives. Margaret of the House of Ives, a rich, elite American family dating back to the mid-1800s, was royalty in the mid-20th century, especially when she married Cosmo, an Elvis-like rock star. When Cosmo died prematurely in a car crash after only four years together, Margaret became a recluse and then disappeared from public life altogether. Thanks to some savvy internet sleuthing plus a mysterious invitation to a remote island in Georgia, Alice tracks down Margaret and pitches doing her biography. It so happens that Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist of biography is also chasing the Margaret story. (It didn’t hit me until now the fun detail of Hayden winning the Pulitzer — Margaret’s great-great grandfather, Lawrence, who started their riches and media empire by buying up West Coast newspapers, amassed credibility by stealing talent from Pulitzer!) Hayden is aloof and stoic, all business. A sharp contrast to Alice’s eternal optimism and, as Hayden describes, “smile, like she just walked into a surprise birthday party.” Naturally, these two are on a collision course for love! I’ve read enough of these to know that. Still, it was beautifully and nicely written by Henry, as I said, with her usual witty back-and-forth dialogue and undeniable chemistry between the two. Fortunately, she also didn’t drag out the will-they-won’t-they. Not too long into the book, they’re kissing and fondling. But they tried to maintain a modicum of professionalism as they both pursue the “job” with Margaret, who has ostensibly pitted them against each other for a 30-day trial run. At the end, she’ll pick one of them to do her biography in earnest. Hayden is also worried when he gets the job (Alice certainly clocks the arrogance!), it’ll make Margaret hate him, so later, when he tells her he loves her, he doesn’t want her to say it yet.

Throughout this trial, we begin to hear Margaret’s story, which started with Lawrence, a dirt poor child of many, who profited off of the gold rush. His son, George, was better at running newspapers and eventually, a film studio, too. Margaret’s father was more the typical rich playboy caricature, not interested in a career of his own or really, anything, until Margaret’s fierce, glass ceiling-breaking director mother came into his studio and challenged him. The main throughline as Margaret narrates her family tree and history — which Henry does well, playing off the old saying of their being three stories, yours, mine, and the truth and how that especially juxtaposes well with the tabloid version of Margaret’s life story, her version of it, and the allusive truth version — is that Margaret is clearly reticent about divulging everything.

When they’re not listening to Margaret’s story (separately), Alice and Hayden’s love blossoms, often lustily, but also, we learn more about those two and their respective family histories. As I mentioned, Alice feels her mother doesn’t respect what she does or even cares. Her dad, who did, is dead. Hayden wishes Alice would care about her feelings toward her mother instead of slapping a smile on something she’s not actually smiley about. Hayden feels strongly about it because his mother, who we later learn was adopted, hid her mental struggles behind a smile until she tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide. Interestingly, not to the same extent as the House of Ives, Hayden and his family grew up in the spotlight because their dad was a mayor in Indiana (not of Indiana, he jokes with Alice, since states do not have mayors).

Margaret’s sister, Laura, was bookish and introverted, shying away from the limelight Margaret readily embraced. She would be taken advantage of by a cult leader, David, who convinced her to not only abandon her family and come live with him, but then try to extort the House of Ives for $4 million. She turned on them, though. Laura would go to Europe to be with the family doctor and have his child. (The family doctor would turn out to be the eccentric “Captain,” who owns a local restaurant on the island Alice and Hayden befriended.) That child, Jodi, was the one who came to Georgia after Laura died and tried to chide Margaret into telling her story. She was also the one who sent the tip to Alice about Margaret.

Throughout the book, again, we’re given hints Margaret isn’t being as forthcoming as she ought to be for a supposedly honest appraisal of her family and life. Of course, as Henry also tells us, this is merely Margaret’s version of the story. Hayden is halting, too, though, sensing something is off with Margaret. The climax comes when Alice realizes the inciting incident that led to Cosmo’s death in the crash — rushing to the hospital for Margaret’s appendicitis — was actually concealment of Margaret’s pregnancy. Margaret had a daughter and covered her up in an echo of her grandfather’s history (he did the same thing with a “niece” he doted on who was actually his daughter). Margaret’s daughter became Hayden’s mother. And yes, as I alluded to, there is profound irony that Margaret gave her daughter up for adoption to protect her from the limelight only for her to be thrust into a limelight of a kind in Indiana (along with probably issues of not knowing her birth mother!). The reason Margaret invited Hayden to the island was to get to know her grandson and probe him to see how her daughter did without being ensnared by the House of Ives curse. Alice was brought in to further entice Hayden out of a sense of journalistic competition. Because Alice signed a nondisclosure agreement, she can’t tell any of this to Hayden, but she also can’t stand to lie to him either. She rejects the job with Margaret and absconds to her mother’s home, also in Georgia. (Hayden, for the record, rejected the job, too, again, sensing Margaret wasn’t being forthcoming.)

The best confrontation occurs after this seeming climax, when after a few days at her mother’s house, Alice’s mother finally asks her if she’s going to tell her what’s wrong. Alice snidely replies, “You want me to?” That kicks off Alice finally confronting her mother over not feeling respected or even liked by her because of who she is and her chosen occupation. “It’s so fucking lonely being the person who doesn’t belong in this family,” Alice tells her. That’s when her mom goes into a touching explanation by way of a mother’s love. To paraphrase, when Alice and her sister were babies, her mom felt like they were still a piece of her heart out in the world; as they became older, they formed pieces she didn’t know about, that were distinctly theirs and it was hard. And as it happened, Alice’s pieces were harder for her to understand. Heartachingly, and the moment in Henry’s book that most broke me, Alice’s mother says, “You deserve to have him [her dad, who died]. You don’t know how many times I’ve wished it had been me instead.” Oof.

That conversation was like a weight off of Alice’s shoulders and brings her closer to her mother. They understand each other now. Alice decides, given how limited of a time we all have with those we love, she’s going to write a memoir and get to know her dad (again) and her mom (anew). Then, Hayden comes with a letter Alice wrote to Margaret trying to explain everything. Margaret came clean and gave the letter to Hayden. In the letter, for the first time, Alice acknowledges she loves Hayden. That’s all Hayden needed to hear. He’s ready to unmake the world and build it anew for Alice. They do. They team up on a book about Margaret. She has his child, who they sweetly name Laura, and Alice reflects, “In that moment, I feel closer to my parents, both of them, than I ever have in my life.” She gets it now in a way she never had before.

As Henry’s book jacket states, “It was brief, and it was beautiful.” That’s Margaret’s time with Cosmo and with her sister she tried to hard to fiercely protect. That’s Alice’s time with her dad, and now, renewed, her time with her mom. That’s life. That’s love. That’s this book. Brief for the amount of time I had with it, but beautiful. All the best things are brief, in their way, and beautiful, still.