Summer Romance #1: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

There goes the last great American dynasty

Welcome to a new summer series! I’m going to dedicate a newsletter each to the buzzy romances of the summer, including a review, read-alikes, and what I think they might say about the landscape of romance today. I’m also planning on tackling Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez, One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune, Can’t Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan, and *maybe* Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood, if I feel like wading into the age gap of it all—suggestions for what you want to see in this series welcome! But, of course, we’re kicking things off with the reigning queen of contemporary romance: Emily Henry.

The author: Since the release of Beach Read in 2020, Henry has become a phenomenon, complete with planned film adaptations, special editions, midnight release parties, and an Out of Print collection accompanying each new release. People who don’t normally read romance will read the new Emily Henry. People who only read a few books a year will read the new Emily Henry. She was the gateway to romance for a huge number of readers and her fingerprints are all over the contemporary romance novels we’re getting today, including the increasingly porous boundaries between romance and women’s fiction, the popularity of meta elements and romance novels that comment on their genre, and the rise of first person single POV.

The premise: Eternally sunny Alice Scott and equally stormy Hayden Anderson are on Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write a biography of Margaret Ives, the daughter of a legendary newspaper dynasty who was a tabloid fixture before disappearing. After a one-month trial period, Margaret will choose one of them for the project. Only it seems like she’s not giving either of them the whole story…and it seems like Alice and Hayden can’t help being drawn to each other.

My thoughts: I’m not sure if this is my favorite of Henry’s novels but it was absolutely the one that affected me the most emotionally. About 150 pages in, I realized this novel was going to hit me right in the heart and I surrendered. It’s sprawling and achingly sincere and, excitingly, it’s the most prominent romance author of right now trying something new. The novel is told through two timelines: the present with Alice and Hayden and the past, as Margaret relates the story of her notorious family and eventful life to Alice. The dual timelines have been the source of some book world controversy but I think they balance and mirror each other perfectly. I was paying close attention to how much time we spent in each timeline and for me, the past took up the exact right amount of page space. Henry interweaves the themes of parents and children, of the many forms legacy takes, and of the narratives we weave around ourselves as we go back between past and present. I also found Margaret’s glamorous, lonely life fascinating. As I’ve written before in this newsletter, I love a romance author playing with the genre and this is my favorite of the novels hovering between women’s fiction and romance that I’ve read lately.

But ultimately, I do think this is a romance. Alice and Hayden always felt like the novel’s beating heart and the slow, layered way they open up to each other is just lovely. Their love story is an instant spark and a gradual unraveling and the scenes where they’re just talking, hungry to know more about each other, are some of my favorites. Twenty-four-hour diners also play a prominent role in the development of their relationship, much to my delight. (I have to note here that this is a deeply talky book, which I adored but not every reader might.) They’re both so much more than the grumpy and sunshine archetypes they appear to fall into at first glance, especially Alice, whose stubborn optimism Henry unpacks in a really interesting way. There were moments when I found myself slowing down as I turned the pages, wanting to linger with these people a little bit longer.

It’s also a book about storytelling. Henry’s written about authors and book people before but I think this is her deepest dive into what writing means to the people who fall in love with it. One of my favorite quotes comes from a moment when Alice and Hayden are talking about writing and Hayden describes it as “bringing something intangible into the world that can live on without you. Something bigger than the person who made it. And even then, the goal is secondary to the process. The process is for us. It changes us in ways that can’t be measured.” As someone who’s been writing for years, and who’s been changed by it, I felt this line all the way down in my bones.

A lot of the Henry hallmarks are present in Great Big Beautiful Life: the strong sense of place, the top-notch banter, and the prickly man with a heart of gold. But there’s something new and different here too and I can’t wait to see where Henry goes next.

Read-alikes:

• If you like a dual timeline and a broody bookish hero: Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler, a funny and moving road trip romance about a former child star on a mission to reunite the ashes of her deceased best friend with the woman Mrs. Nash fell in love with decades ago.

• If you like a second chance romance: The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce, one of my favorites from last year about two estranged exes who are brought back together as they attempt to save their mutual best friend’s wedding and that sings with yearning and emotion.

• If you like a messy friends-to-lovers dynamic: Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun, a story about grief, growing up, and the power of queer community as two childhood friends turned enemies reunite on a road trip with their dying high school English teacher.

• If you like a new spin on small-town romance: Chick Magnet by Emma Barry, a romance between next-door neighbors who start off on the wrong foot and can’t stay away from each other anyway that’s a smart look at found family in a small town and the art of starting over.

Let me know if you’ve read Great Big Beautiful Life and if you have, what you thought!

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Currently reading: The Artist by Lucy Steeds, a sun-drenched story about female creativity and the aftermath of World War I.

Recommendations, miscellany, and little bits of joy:

• Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the impeccably curated, endlessly fascinating Costume Institute exhibit at the Met. I went with a friend last weekend and we spent over an hour in the exhibit.

• This great Fated Mates episode about the third act break-up that I even took notes on.

• Thunderbolts*, an actually good Marvel movie? I mostly wanted to go because of Florence Pugh, who I adore, but it’s well-paced, well-made, and an ideal movie to watch with snacks on hand. I have a soft spot for a splashy summer blockbuster and this was exactly what I wanted it to be.