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Cover of Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Romance · Free kit

Great Big Beautiful Life

Emily Henry

Alice Scott, a sunny staff writer hungry for a serious book, tracks reclusive heiress Margaret Ives to Little Crescent Island off the Georgia coast. Pulitzer winner Hayden Anderson is already in the living room. Margaret offers both of them a paid month of interviews, an ironclad NDA, and only pieces of a century-long family story — then lets the wanting between the two writers become part of the mystery. Henry's 2025 novel is a slow-burn romance braided with a media dynasty's secrets: who gets to tell a life, who gets protected from it, and what a story costs the people living inside it.

“There's an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine, and the truth.”

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Reading schedule · Book vote

Great Big Beautiful Life Icebreakers

Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.

  1. Personality Reveal

    1. When you walk into a room of impressive people, do you introduce yourself first or wait to be noticed?

  2. Personality Reveal

    2. Are you the person who asks one more question, or the person who knows when to stop asking?

  3. Personality Reveal

    3. Do you trust a first impression, or do you treat it as a draft you will revise?

  4. Funny & Light

    4. What is the most incriminating thing you have ever googled about someone you were about to meet?

  5. Funny & Light

    5. Have you ever left a peace-offering snack at someone's door and then panicked that it was still sitting there hours later?

  6. Funny & Light

    6. What is your most chaotic "I am playing it cool" tell?

  7. Would You Rather

    7. Would you rather be known as relentlessly sunny, or as the person nobody can quite read?

  8. Would You Rather

    8. Would you rather write the official version of a family story, or be the relative who never gets quoted?

  9. Would You Rather

    9. Would you rather spend a month on an island with a secret you cannot share, or a lifetime of knowing nothing extra?

  10. Hot Take

    10. Hot take: optimism is a skill, not a personality. Agree or disagree?

  11. Hot Take

    11. Hot take: if you need a contract to keep people quiet, you are not ready to tell the story. Agree or disagree?

  12. Hot Take

    12. Finish this sentence: Families hide things because ______.

  13. Personal Connection

    13. What is one story about your family that changes depending on who tells it?

  14. Personal Connection

    14. Who in your life is your human thundercloud — and do you actually like the weather?

  15. Personal Connection

    15. When have you wanted someone to take your work seriously and not known how to ask?