Channi

My first Sally Rooney and it was... fine. I still don't know what Alice saw in Felix, but I appreciated the email sections and the general conversations Rooney was having about modern life and connection and morality. 

I really wasn’t sure how to rate this book. Emily Henry is one of my favorite authors and what works here works really well, but at the same time I had some issues with the story.

Starting with what works well: as usual, Emily Henry is such a good writer. She can have me laughing out loud one moment and holding back tears the next. Alice is a great protagonist— I found her to be so likable and layered. Additionally, there are plenty of surprises that are fun to unravel.

Now, onto the critiques: There are so many moving pieces in Great Big Beautiful Life, and I think the story would’ve benefited from cutting some parts out and focusing in on certain, more integral elements. Some questions are still unanswered by the end of the novel, which is really frustrating. Additionally, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the love story, which was not the main focus of this novel but still big enough to matter.

This was a very cute book but the tonal shifts kind of gave me whiplash and some of the pacing is downright odd. I liked it, but think that the story should've been longer to help the transitions of emotions, stakes, and plot points make more sense.

This was a good enough read. I would definitely read another novel by Fagan, and I had fun with some parts. However, there were too many perspectives and the ending was really just... okay. 

Ali Hazelwood is a comfort author at this point. Nobody is going to claim the Steminist novellas are high art, but this one was cute and I liked the characters well enough.