December 27, 2025 • 39 mins
It’s the second episode of our Summer Book Club and this time, we’re diving headfirst into Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.
So then, it was the book that promised joy, mess, meaning and maybe a mild existential spiral — did it deliver? 👀
In this episode, Em V, Jessie and Holly unpack:
-
Why this story hits differently when you read it in summer
-
The characters we wanted to hug… and the ones we wanted to gently shake
-
Big love, big choices and the pressure to live a 'beautiful' life
-
Whether this book is hopeful escapism or a mirror held a little too close
-
And the one question it leaves you asking long after the last page
It’s warm, emotional, occasionally unhinged (in a good way) and exactly the kind of book you want to argue about with friends.
Read it. Feel things. Then come scream about it with us.
Summer Book Club Episode 3 drops on January 25 when we'll be discussing the Melaleuca by Angie Faye Martin.
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What to read:
- 'I’m obsessed with audiobooks, here are 10 of the best I’ve ever heard.'
- 11 of the very best beach reads to lose yourself in this summer.
- If you loved A Court of Thorns and Roses, here are 6 romantasy books to read next.
- The 8 best spicy reads that aren't all-out smutty.
- The 22 best books Reese Witherspoon has recommended.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast. Welcome out Louders to
our second Summer book Club episode. Now, I'm Hollywood, right,
I'm Jesse Stevens, and I'm Berner. And when we were
choosing our books for the Summer book Club, we're doing
three at least to start with. We wanted different kinds
(00:30):
of books.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Because our first book, of course, was All Fours by
Miranda July. Great comment in the out Louders Facebook group
from a woman who said, who would you cast? Which
I sometimes find that question hard, but she said for Davy,
she would cast Dave Franco and I haven't stopped thinking
about that. It's so so accurate. She just absolutely nailed it.
(00:52):
But our second one, we wanted a very different vibe.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And we have gone with a very different vibe. Our
second book is by Emily Henry and it's called Great, Big,
Beautiful Life. Now, this is my first m hen novel,
but she is huge. Em You tell us about em
hen She's massive.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Firstly, I'm so excited we did this book because I
wanted to do it because all my friends have read
it and I needed to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Have you read other Emily Henry book?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yes, I'm a new m hen fan, a new m
hen Stan. So Emily Henry was introduced in my life
around COVID time. She came out with a book in
twenty twenty called Beach Read that immediately sold millions of copies,
and she became so so famous, and since then she's
been producing romance novel after romance novel every single year since,
(01:44):
and all bestsellers. In five my best sellers, they're all
going to be made into movies and TV shows. One
of her books, People we Meet on Vacation, is currently
getting made into a Netflix movie.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Of course it is, Yes, the two.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Other books I've read, so she does a lot of
like romantic tropes, right, she does like excess to lovers,
colleagues to lovers, enemies to lovers.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
She's considered a romance writer to a point, but she's
broken through out of that genre into mainstream.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And the two books I've read from hers is Funny Story,
which is about roommates to lovers, and another one called
Happy Plays. And this book is like the book that
everyone loves from her. It's about X's going into lovers
and I have a friend who listens to it as
an audiobook probably three times a year.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Really, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
What I found interesting two things about Emily Henry that
I found on my googling. The first is that she's
a year younger than me, which I don't appreciate at all,
because she has written I think she's written more than
ten books. She's written ten books, and.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
How many have you done?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I have only done two, and none of them are
New York Times bestsellers. I'll tell you that or made
into Netflix shows. And the second thing is that she
started in young adult and I think that that's an
important detail because that made me understand the style of
her writing a little bit more. I think that's why
she is so accessible. Young adult is this for a
(03:10):
long time. It's been this massive genre that we obviously
miss but captures a lot of teens adolescents and then
gets them into kind of adulthood. But that's where she started,
so I think she wrote, you know, four books or
whatever in that and then moved on to adults.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I've noticed that her protagonist in her books like
grow with her, So she's also capturing like women my age,
but also women in my sister's age, who's in her
early twenties. Because I feel like I always read these
sorts of books when I was younger because I'd like
to see older.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, right, yes, yeah, And do you think that with
Emily Henry we are promised a happy ending?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Is that the right?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, the definition of a romance book is a happy ending. Okay, yes, absolutely,
And looking at it's really interesting because looking at some
of the reviews of this on Goodreads and stuff, so
she has a rabbit fan base, like they are obsessed
with her. They're hanging out for the next one. A
year is too long to wait. A lot of people
have said this is her first book that isn't strictly
(04:08):
romance because it has the whole double plot situation going on,
and there's some of them liked it and some of
them didn't for that reason. But yes, you are pretty
much guaranteed a romance and a happy ending with an
m N book. Shall we talk a little bit about
what this one's about. Yes, So this one is about
a writer called Alice Scott. She is in her early thirties,
(04:30):
thirty three. She is tall and good looking.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
She travels to an island in Georgia and southern USA
to obstensibly interview with the view to writing a biography
of a reclusive, very famous American heiress who's now elderly.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I saw her as a this Margaret Ives who she's
interviewing as sort of succession Murdock.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Literally I had that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Like that kind of Kennedy. Yeah, a little bit Kennedy, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Clearly super famous as one of the big themes the
book is about that, like she's so hounded by the
press her life to see who she's going to marry,
what she's going to do.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
But also her family was the press, which I thought
was yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
And so Alice travels to the island to meet Margaret
and obsensibly write this book. But there is another writer
there with whom she must compete, and he is a
Pulitz Surprise winning journalist called Hayden Anderson. He is also
very tall. He's very tall and very broody, very tall
and very broody.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
And he has written a book, a former Politz Surprise
winning book, which I just every time it was described,
I was.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Like, I want to be reading that book. It's got
a really good purpose.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's about a man named Lynn, a famous man named Lynn,
who knows that he has dementia in and he's losing
so many of these memories.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So he writes the book back to front. Oh, it's
really clever.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So he is my clever guy who writes the kind
of books Jesse wants to read, and she they have
to compete. Right now, if you're listening to this, you've
read the book, you know what happens. But I want
to talk a little bit about the hero about Hayden,
because what I've come to understand from doing a bit
of reading about romance lately is there are a few
different kinds of romantic hero Right. There's the alpha asshole
(06:18):
who's sometimes called the alpha hoole, who is like ripe
for redemption. There's a romance writer I know, and all
her heroes are alpha men who women can bring to
their knees, do you know what I mean? So there's
that kind of guy. But apparently Hayden is termed a
cinnamon role. Did you know that? Oh? No, So cinnamon
role characters are a romantic archetype. Obviously, they offer a
(06:41):
comforting alternative to aggressive alpha hole heroes, sweet and kind.
They might be grumpy on the surface, but sweet and
kind supportive acts as the heroine's biggest cheerleader, emotionally open
in touch with their feelings, unlike traditional growth heroes respectful.
So there was treat women with respect and they have
a relatively gentle demeanor. Now it's interesting because when I
(07:04):
read that, and there's piece of the New York Times
about m said that she always writes a lot of
cinnamon roles, that they're the kind of man who respects
everything the main female character has feelings about and never
tries to dominate her or take over her life. And
I've found this really interesting because old fashioned romance novels,
the heroes the object of a woman's affection is very
(07:26):
often a dickhead who somehow has to be redeemed. But
it felt like because I was feeling like I was
reading a millennial kind of romance for the first time.
We don't want that. They don't want that, you know
what I mean. You don't want this guy who's going
to be a dickhead and maybe string you along and
not call you back and all those things. You want
a cinnamon roll who is a guy who is sexy
(07:47):
and there's a little bit of chase there, but he's
always going to be nice to you.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That's so true because even with the other two books
of Hers I've read, both of the male characters have
been very similar to Hayden, and it's always they find
the girl very like silly and quirky, but also endearing.
And then there comes to a point where she's like,
I have to do this on my own and he's like,
I respect that.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yes he's not, he does respect. Like. The thing that
I found interesting is that the first book of this
kind of like that's millennial romance, I think is I
found there was a lot of reference to wearing sunscreen,
a lot of adding salads, a lot of brown sugar
ice lattes, and a lot.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Of explicit reference to a common.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Dooms and consent, and like it's all very like sensible.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
You know, and it's a very female gaze. It's incredibly
that's exactly what it is. And unapologetically, did we like Hayden?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Are we hot for Hayden?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I didn't feel hot for Hayden, but I read that
it's kind of the grumpy chirpy dichotomy, which I felt
and which grated on me at first, and then I.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Got used to because she is so our heroine. Alice
is a relentless optimist, who wears bright colors, wears little skirts,
is always smiling, is always happy, which is quite unusual
for a journalist. I do have to say, yeah, yeah,
but that's her, and he on the surface, even though
he's the cinnamon roll like nice guy on the surface,
is a bit grumpy and a bit unapproachable.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Which I was just thinking, Yeah, and I suppose that
this is, you know, a trope as old as time.
But if someone is that, like he was so unappealing
at the beginning and borderline rude and dismissive of her,
the idea that then he turns out to be someone
who's misunderstood and misread. I kind of didn't immediately buy,
(09:36):
like I was with him by the end, but I
think I do find that trope a little grating.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, and even the contrast between what she thinks of
him versus what her friends in the group chat think
of him, because I feel like, if this was real
and my friend was talking about this guy who I
know is an awful guy, and she's like, he's really
actually really nice, one to get to know him, like,
shut up.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, And if everyone else finds him cold and aloof
and rude and cynical and hard work. I was really
interested in the scene and we'll get to this where
he meets her mum.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I just thought that's where it all comes out.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, what's it going to be like when you introduce
this person to other people? Because the idea that just
you understand him and it's just to you that he
opens up and he.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Becomes this like you know, that is a trope is
all of time because women this generalizing about romantic tropes,
not talking about real life love. The idea of the
hero that you have to crack open, right that everybody
else might think is a dick, but you know, is
a really lovely person and he's just shy or whatever.
But I think in this instance, like it's quite quick
(10:43):
that she realizes that he's okay. She just finds him
very intimidating. But we know he wrote that lovely book
about that old man, so we know that he's a
man capable of emotional depth and who got very attached
to his subject there and all those things.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
But he was quite rude at the beginning, like the
idea that she kind of didn't have a chance, and
there was an arrogance to him.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Yeah, he was like, I'm not the kind of person
who'll just be polite.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yeah exactly, it's like, just be nicer.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And I.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Found her and I just didn't feel like she was
this well rounded character. And I found her kind of
bubbliness almost annoying and childish like that I kind of
wanted a bit goodsy girl.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah exactly. She was a bit pixie girl.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And the way that she kind of pandered to everyone
and was just ridiculously lovely, I just thought.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I don't know anyone like that.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I think also with her being alone on the island,
she was just making decisions that I felt like weren't
so true, like going to a bar and seeing two
couples at the bar and wanting to be sat in
between them.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Yeah, there's just like weird little things.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I was like, that feels And now you're best friends
with the bar owner and going to his birthday.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, I didn't mind that. Like we're supposed to think
that she's an extravert, right, it's all the way through it.
She talks about that I like going out, I like socializing,
I like people. She likes talking to people. That's why
she is at the kind of journalist she is. She
likes going and finding out stories and all those things.
That is a real thing. Like a lot of writers
are very solitary, introverted people. But if you've got to
(12:14):
go and get stories out of people, you have to
be good with people. Have you met Trendall very good
with people? Like you have to win them over. You
have to stroke an ego. You have to not be
scared to walk up to a stranger and ask them
a question like you know what I mean? Yeah, very true,
that was I didn't find that too untrue. I wanted
to know like that she wasn't super insecure, like you know,
(12:34):
if that was a full that would have been too much.
She was yeah, and she knew she was kind of
hot and attractive and whatever. And she has this situationship
going on with THEO.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
THEO is who I wanted to hear more from.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh No, I thought that was great.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I thought the THEO storyline was so real.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
It was too real.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
The way in which.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Her friends said THEO only like he is always laying
the groundwork for you to invite him for you twinn shate,
I was like, I have been in that dynamic so
many times. The canceling last minute, I just felt like
THEO she nailed.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
It with that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Her friend's just saying, as long as you're getting what
you want out of this, and you both know that
you're not.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
You're not, but that there's no other options. So you're like,
I'm really just here for the scraps. At the moment,
we are going to take a break, and when we
come back, I want to tell you about the turning
point for me in this Bookay.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
The reason why this book is a bit different, as
far as I can tell from what people have told
me about other m M novels, is that it's quite
actually quite ambitious in its scope. Right. So we've got
this storyline that we've just outlined with Alison Hayden and
will they won't they? And we all know that no will,
but how and how good will it be? Etc. But
the other storyline we have going through it is the
woman they've both come to try and win over interview,
(13:48):
Margaret Ives, who is our heiress. She's now in her
eighties and she has this fascinating story to tell. Now,
interesting choice as a writer to decide that you've got
your relatively straightforward romance here and then you're going to
weave in this quite complex backstory of Margaret's which goes
several generations back to great grandfather and who he married
(14:11):
and there blah blah blah blah, and then her dad
and her mum and her sister and all this.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I found they're very confusing.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Now, I found it quite confusing at times, but lots
of people have called this out as being quite derivative
is probably too strong a word. Reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins
reads Evil and Hugo the Seven Husbands now at Taylor.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Jones and The Six I think it was a mixture
of those two.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, because in that a journalist is interviewing a woman
about her life and her loves and new kind of
feeling that it's going.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
To happen, and Taylor Jenkins read blurbed.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, she's clearly a fan of m Hen's. I think
that's you know, their their buddies whatever. But a few
people have said is similar to that. But I think
Emily Henry was obviously taking a swing to do something
different with this book in that it has more depth
and more scope. But did that work? I loved it.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
It was my favorite part of it.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I found that I was looking forward to those chapters.
I really liked the the complexity of the family dynamics.
If you told me that that was a big part
of the book, I don't think it would have sold me.
But for some reason, every time I hit one of
those chapters, I went, oh, I really like this, and
I loved the device she used, which was what the
headline said and then what was actually going on behind
(15:26):
the scenes. I thought it was really true to the
complexity of family and how there was a sibling who
felt like they had less attention or a really complicated father.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
I thought that for the way in which the.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Two protagonists were caricatures, to me, I felt like these
weren't caricatures. It read almost like a history book, and
I really liked that.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, I didn't like the Margaret story. Every time I
got to like the chapter where it was like chapter
seventeen and then the story, I was.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Like, oh, so that's really.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Because you two are basically opposites in this. You were
happy days. I love that, and you were like, oh no,
let's get back, get back to the Georgia, tell me
tell the small Why did you not like it?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I think because I don't want to compare, but because
I had read Evelyn Hugo first I think also with
the Taylor Jenkins read going into the Evelyn Hugo story,
and it was also similar things like the big obstacle
in both of these women's stories, like Margaret and Evelyn
Hugo was like the paparazzi were insane. And I felt
(16:28):
that more with Evelyn Hugo when you get to the
climax of the story that you can see how bad
it was for her. And I feel like this one
was just too rushed because I think we were also
dealing with the other story, like god, rushed is not a.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Word I would use.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Okay, I know what you mean.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
There's too many people. I forgot the name. I did
think there were too many people.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And I'm often a defender of that because people said
that about my last book, that there may be too
many people, and.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
You know, you had that I think I needed in this.
I needed a family family tree.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
But like for me, and I'm interested for Jesse to
tell me her turning point right because for me, the
first half of this book, I was like, this is
moving too slowly. I don't care about anybody. I'm kind
of over this, Like I don't want to know about
great granddad and da da da da dad. I don't
really care about all of that. And then in the
back half, or maybe certainly the back third, I was
(17:20):
totally engrossed in that story, like when it got to
her sister and the cult and what's his name? Cosmo,
who was a little bit I'm convincing, but the husband
and that kind of stuff, Like then I was in it.
And that was when I sort of started really page turning.
But I think this book is too long for what
it is. I genuinely do.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, right, okay, So I read the first chapter and went,
I don't know how I'm going to get through this.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I hate it.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I hated the way it was written. I didn't want
to spend time with the main character. I found her irritating.
I thought this is a bad Netflix movie and book form.
And then I thought this is a way less sophisticated
Taylor Jenkins read and I was going, what is the appeal?
And then I got something happened around page one hundred.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I know, I kind of want a page one hundred.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, maybe there was something sex that happened, and they
just totally got me in.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
I also found like.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
In those first one hundreds it was all about croissants
and what coffee she ordered, and she loved this way
and that way, like that is so far. I felt
like there were all these extraneous details that I went,
is this really you don't like that?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Like I love the description of like the coffee shop,
and like has she had the green tea by accident
and it burnt her lips its sweaty and shay.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I like all that too, But I wrote down in
my notes very similar thing to Jesse, which is like
some thing's way too detailed, and then strangely something's not
at all, Like I now I'm in an apartment that
I've rented in the woods, Like what.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
When did you?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
How did you find that place? I don't get it,
but I understand why she puts in all the latte
cafe whatever, because people love that. Young people love that shit.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I was in my head, I'm Alice, so I want
to be Alice, and I want to make the decisions.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I went to Little Croissant too many times, and I
was half listening to the audiobook and half reading it,
and every time the audiobook person said little Croissant, I
was like, okay, that's just.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
But then it picked up for you and for you,
it was around one hundred. For me, I think it
was a bit further on where finally I kind of
when all the strands started coming together, because you know,
they're going to write in a book like this, and
that isn't a criticism, Like any writer of any skill
is going to bring all their threads together. That's what
they're there for. So when that started to happen for me,
(19:35):
the momentum started to move and I was like, Okay,
now I'm in it. Whereas the first half I was
kind of like meandering around, didn't know why, you know,
and that's part of a device, like you're not supposed
to know why. But I was definitely in danger of
wandering off, getting on the ferry and getting off the island. Yeah,
I felt I didn't and I'm glad I did it.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, I guess it.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Around that point I went. It reminded me of when,
because I guess I read books for lots of different reasons.
I love insights and observation. This didn't have a lot
of that, I don't think. Maybe towards the end there
was some commentary on the human condition and life that
I found kind.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Of mothers and sisters and family.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That got there for me, But certainly in the first
third there was nothing where I went, oh, that's a
clever observation, or like, that's an interesting thing I haven't
heard before. But by that point I went, I'm here
for the plot and I think I care how this
plays out, which which, yeah, then.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I was because what you're hanging out to find out
in this book is obviously there's the will they won't they?
And I was discussed we know they will, but how
Then there's the why? Why is this old lady making
these writers comparted?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I reckon I'd picked by page one hundred that she
had some relationship to Hayden, because I've seen it Neville
and Hugo. There's a movie called Lee and it's got
Kate Winslet, and it is about a war photographer and
she's telling her life story to this journalist and he
kind of doesn't know why him. It's the same thing.
(21:09):
And then you've just covered in the notebook device, Yeah,
that I've just seen the.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Year, But I didn't know what it was going to be, Okay,
yeah I didn't. I mean I knew that obviously there
had to be a reason, and so I kind of
wanted to know that, and then as I got more
into the family's story, I wanted to know what was
going to happen to the sister and all that kind
of stuff. Like I did want to know all that.
So I guess I was Paige turning for that. But
(21:36):
were you what did you want to know?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Firstly, my turning point was when there was a fire
and then he saved her from that creepy man.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Oh ye didn't that.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
I forget about that, Like we're in boys.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I knew that was going to happen.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Yeah, that was quite nice, But I did not like
the ninety.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
She was wearing the y there was three quarters a lot,
but she know that was part of her whole season.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
But then they went to a diner and I was like,
she's still in a ninety Ye.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I also know like she had like a bit of
makeup on curls and her hair.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, and I worried about his sleep. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Not getting and also we're going to get to the
juicy stuff. But go on, Cecil, Yeah, not doing a
good job of hiding. No, was wandering around, although I
have to say that when it turns up that like
get the photo of cecil with the long hair. I
knew obviously it had to be connected, but I didn't
pick it. And then suddenly you're like, oh, that man
(22:37):
looks familiar in the back of that foot. Oh it's
with the long hair, Like when I didn't see that
coming from, which I definitely picked that Jody was either
going to be a daughter or a niece or something.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I knew that I thought maybe Laura.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
It might be Laura. I thought it might be her sister.
When we come back, we got to get to the
sex scenes, because I think that's a large part of
why people like these books.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I have some concents.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So back to the romance. As you've already flagged. The
moment where slightly gruffed, slightly unavailable, but very hot Hayden
begins to show his cinnamon role credentials is when he
saves her from the creepy man outside the hotel when
fire alarm goes off.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, and he puts his arm around her waist and
then they walk off together and then she's like, Okay,
good night, and he's like, no, I want to get
breakfast with you.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
They're liking in breakfast at night. That's one of their quirks.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, yeah, and I also I worried about I know
she's only thirty two, thirty three, but in terms of
cholesterol and blood pressure, it's just the next ten years,
they're not going to be kind. I just she there
was a lot of funny that you say that, because
for me, I felt there was too much reference to salad.
Yeah maybe for him, and she ate well when she
was with her mum, But when she was I just went,
we can make pancakes every day. Yeah, We're gonna have
(23:51):
pancakes and chrissals every day. She's having coffee at night.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
She went, honey, mate, if I was on the island,
I did quite enjoy being on the island. If I
was on the island writing a story and I was her,
I would have been brunting every day for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Oh I would too, but I would be the can't
get up a bit exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So that's where we begin to see the romance blossom.
Like we know it's going to happen, right, and he's
hot and she's hot, and it doesn't take him too
long to declare his affection. No, but we feel about
it moves quite fast.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Had someone like with romance being quite fresh to me.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I quite liked and I knew that this was a formula,
but like the device of we can't and then it's
a kiss, and then we can't. We can't, but it
was just a hug but blah, but blah, and.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Then people in their thirties can be horny too, exactly,
it's not just for us twenty.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I really liked so the first kind of proper sex
in the storm. I thought the storm was right, like
natural disaster.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
That was he comes to save her.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, but here's my consent.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
He didn't need to save hers. She'd saved herself. She's
a modern heroine. No, she hadn't charged her phone, she
hadn't changed her phone, which is a problem. She knew
what to do. I like that she knew what to
do in the store to do, she got all the
things and she.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Was like, I respect that she got your clothes.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
And then I love the fact that obviously this was
a device that like she was the one who really
wanted them to have sex, and he was this is
Very was the one Very And she's like, let's have sex,
and he's like, no, no, you much.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Never ever had that experience in my life.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
I had that experience. I'm just here.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
She's had this day, if my memory serves me correctly
interviewing Margaret, quite a sweaty, hot day. Then she gets
home and she decides, even though a storm's about to come,
that she's not going to have a shower, that she's
just going to wash her face right, And then he
comes over. I thought about this too, and also in
my head, I'm going, oh, no, you haven't had a shower.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Was what underwear are you wearing?
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Because I know it's not the good pairs, it's not
the good pair.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And then the storm's over, and then he decides to
perform a sexual action.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I'm going, no, no, no, no, she's oh my god.
I didn't even think about it. Oh oft into it,
I was.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Like, no, honey, you need a minute.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Actually, the sex scene that I thought was hot, I
think it happens before that. But well, when they're in
the woods and he's like strong at the beach, like
I was like, that's hot, but like she didn't clarify
what position they were in, because I thought they were
standing at the beach and then suddenly they were spooning.
Because there's a lot of what when I was young
(26:41):
We used to call it frontage, which is like when
you're like not having sex, but you're having sex, you
or have been through the lots of Like, there's lots
of that, which I found quite hot. I didn't actually
find the sex scenes hot though, really not really no,
too many adjectives. There was a lot of adjective, very
hard to write sex. It's so even when he was
using her hand, that was kind of hot, but again
(27:05):
didn't quite Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Yeah, maybe we've lived too long.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I think it's because we went from our first book,
which had a literal tampon play.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, no, that's true, to this and I with the audiobook,
which apparently has won awards, and I have some notes,
but it was just the woman who was doing it
would be like, oh, like it was him like huffing
and put on this gravelly voice, and I was just
like I got the every time she did that.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So I have to say that I quite enjoyed the audiobook.
I think that's because I was doing the same. I
listened to some of it and the pace was good
on that. But you're right, you don't need to do
the man's voice. No, don't do the man's voices too distract.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Especially during the sex scenes. I found that a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
So when he's fully revealed to be the lovely, wonderful
man is as Jesse's already referenced when they go to
her mother's obviously, I am in love with the mother's house.
I just want to move in with the mom. She's
got me all the time, She's cooking lots of yummy,
healthy food. They're having a good time. Mom doesn't talk much.
Mom's very like closed off genexa.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And on the way home, he really does show his
hand as being the sensitive new age dude, the cinnamon
roll guy, because he's like, you need to talk to
your mom about how you feel about each other. I
don't agree, and she was like yes.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
She was like, but no, I don't Exactually, you know
my mom for five seconds and you come into my bar.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Going you hang your mom? Tell me why exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
She's very proud of you. She just doesn't you need
to talk to her about it? No, what did you think?
Speaker 4 (28:33):
The formula? And there was a point at which I
went did AI not write it? But help? Could this
be written by Ai? Is?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Because it got to a point and I went three
to one fight like there was that needed to happen.
It kind of needed to be inspired by her, probably
needed like chapter or two where they were a bit cold,
and then they would get back on with the natural disaster.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
The thing is, Jesse, is that is literally a romance formula.
I talked about it on out Loud a while ago.
I went to a romance writing workshop. And you have
to do that. You've got the build to get together,
the obstacle, the fight, the separation, the resolution. Is there
anything wrong with that? That's the question. Because people love
these books and they know, like you know when on
the first minute you meet him, that those two are
(29:22):
going to be married by the and you know that.
But I don't think you're reading a book like this
for the surprise. You're reading it for the journey, like
you know what I am.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
But I think that at this cultural moment, I am
resisting formula because of my terror towards AI, because I'm
going Emily Henry, who is releasing a book a year,
all of which are best sellers, and the publishing industry
needs one hundred more Emily Henry's like these could be
pumped out by a chat pot.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
I truly believe that, I truly believe.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
That that's one of the first genres that because there
is such formula, and say what you want about all
fours don't know what the.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Formula was there?
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Who knew where that was going.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
It's like the Netflix romance, which is.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
What I love, like I have to not know, but
I can also see the appeal of nothing like being
safe in a happy ending.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, which is also what Netflix wants at the moment
with even like the Summer I Turned Pretty or whatever.
I wondered if it was similar genre wise to that.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
There was a lot of wandering around in that too,
many many matches, many many ice lattes, and many many
We could have got this over within ten minutes.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Did they go for a lot of walks because there's
a lot of walks.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
There's a lot of walks, Jane Austin, But you love
these books, and why do you love a happy ending?
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I think because exactly what you said, I know exactly
what I'm going to get out of it, so it's
always a safe read for me, whereas there sometimes where
I'll be reading I think it was Long Island Compromise.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
I read that is that is a yes, but it's
called Long Island Compromise.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
It sounds like it's going to be fun.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
It sounds like it's going to be a beech read.
So I took it to the beach and I read it,
and it ruined my whole family holiday because I was
just so closed off from everyone. And I think these
week with Emily Henry, like she's a safe author where
if we were to take this to our family holiday,
we know exactly what we're going to get out of
it and still feel good because we're reading a book.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's a perfect summer read, like that's often been dismissed
like beach reads, summer reads, holiday reads, and women's fiction
is dismissed anyway. And she's written about that herself and said,
you know, if all the characters in my books were men,
they would be viewed differently. And I think that's true.
There's nothing wrong with that as long as you know
what you're getting in my opinion, like I don't think.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
So what do you think?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And this has been discussed online and something that I
pondered when I finished it, What do you think this
book is about?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So? I think it's about family, and I think it's
about loss, like it's about our girl Alice, although she's
very perky. She's still grieving loss of her dad relatively recently.
And there's always if a character in a book has
lost a parent, they were always perfect, always yeah, unless
it's a different kind of book altogether. And so she's
losing her dad to whom she was very close. The
(32:07):
thing that I found was weirdly unresolved was there's also
a lot of references to her sister and her sister's
illness when she was young. I was so expecting to
meet the sister at some point in this book. I'm like,
why am I finding out so much about this sister
if she's never going to wander into the plot. She doesn't.
She doesn't turn up, does she.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I think that that was about sibling dynamics, and so
was Lily obviously, yes, Laura, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Laura, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
And in that way, I think it's a book about love,
but she broadened it out from romantic love, because even
from every generation in that family, it was about the
type of love they had for their wife, or the
type of love they had for their child, or the
type of even Laura's devotion to her grandfather and all
these complications and like the idea of a love that
(32:52):
you'd give anything for and how sometimes that's a sister
or that's it.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
And Alison Hayden like they were both the younger sibling
with older siblings and their parents both really like their
older siblings, and they felt like they were kind of
left out in that comparis.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It's interesting Jesse, because of course it is about love.
And she tells us that at the end, because that's
the book that Alice is writing, where she's like, all
I ever want to write about is love. But like
every book in a way is about love, like in
some four.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Can I be honest, I don't want to read Alice's
book about life and her parents.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
This pitch is not.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
But you know what I did like and I know
that this just speaks to me. I was quite happy
with where they ended up. I'd like to know what
em thinks about this. I was quite happy that she
didn't go back to la I was quite happy that
they moved to Atlanta and she was hanging out at
her mom's house. I liked all that. Did we like that?
Did we like what?
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Did I find the ending satisfying? Or did you wanted
to go back to being? That's the thing with the
second storyline. I feel like if we didn't have Margaret's storyline,
we would have more room to play with Hayden and
Alice because then for me, like all the time they
had sex ones, like he learned this whole big thing
about his family history and the first thing he asks
her is like, do you actually love me?
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yes, But that's because baby in the next page named
after the cult sister, which I thought was a little
bit too much visual.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, oh, I didn't mind that because I didn't really
need to like read all about them getting back to
get like that was fine. We only got one proper
sex scene, like as in the preditative sex scene, and
there was there were too many you. Yeah, he did
get a going to be safe, I know, which is
great and I'm all for it.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
But it's which is also a plot twist because then
they have the baby.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I think they've had sex later Yeah, but yeah, when
he turns up at the door and you think he's
going to talk about the family, but he's He's like,
that's all sorted. Me and Margaret have sorted that out.
I just need to know if you love me. And
it was like the letter and I'm like, what letter?
I didn't know about the letter.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
She did write a letter, didn't know who was too.
But also before that, she finds out this huge thing
about his family and she starts to fight with him.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah, that was weird. I would have just broken.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Though. That was a genuine dilemma. Don't you think what
you do? So she finds out that, as Jesse picked
on page four that Margaret is Hayden's grandma, she gave
up a child for adoption. I did think, Look, I
know that you're famous. In the paparazzi, you're annoying, but
they so annoying you're giving a child away, That's what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
I think the paparazzi has done so well in Taylor
Jenkins read and I needed more paparazzi hounding decision.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
But like I got it, But lots of famous, rich
people have children. You just build a wall around them,
like you know.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Yes, But then her and Cosmo or whatever is Cosmo.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
I also thought Cecil was Cosmo.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
The whole.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Joking, I don't know, but I did think that they're resisted,
like the fact that he hated them so much and
that kind of claimed his life. I thought that that
act of ultimate sacrifice was like this act of love
that I thought it worked for me.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So then when she finds all that out, and she's like, well,
my choices here are. I can either tell the money
I love that I know all these secrets about him
and maybe Margaret will sue me for millions of dollars.
Or I can break up with him and lose the
love of my life and go live with my mom.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I could just be with him and not tell him
the secret, and that it would.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Be very hard, yeah, because he's going to be like,
why what with the book? I don't understand, like blah, like, yeah,
she told him. She should have told him, because I
reckon that what I love is I probably would have
told him. And then between you, you could probably talk
Margaret out of suing you. Is Margaret really going to
sue you? Is she really taking you all the way
to court and sitting in a court room to go
(36:50):
through all this.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
On the public record and she's trying to be private.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, we needed a lawyer in this book to sort
this out exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I want to know what the out louders thought of Great, Big,
Beautiful Life. I saw a few comments saying I love this.
I can't wait to hear you talk about it, and
it is I feel like Emily Henry. If you are
going away and you just need escapism and you need
to know that your book isn't going to come with
a side of trauma, then probably you're Emily Henry.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Books are a great thing.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Funny Story is I reckon? This book sits in between
the other two. I read so funny story, this one
and then Happy Place.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
Okay, I might get onto funny story.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I was definitely swept away by the end. Like it
took me a while, as I said, and I was like, okay,
the pace is a little bit clunky for me. But
by the end, I was like, come on, I'm getting
it together. Come on, tell me what happened.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
People just love hot people.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
And they were both very hot and very tall. There
was lots of discussion of how tall they both are.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Probably watch an adaptation.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I would watch an adaptation for sure.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Out louders, thanks for being.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Lord, wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah? Is he bit young? Well he's not going to
be in it, is he? Because it's probably not. But
he's very tall.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Who she though.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I always wear skirts like a blonde Dakota Johnson.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, she could be Sydney Sweeney.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Oh she's too small.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Oh I think she's too short.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, she could be Emily Venon.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Emily, I'm Jocoberlordie out loudest.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Thanks for being a part of our second summer book club.
A reminder that the next book we are reading as
part of this book club is Mela Luka by Angie
Fay Martin. It is an Australian debut fiction book that
came out this year and there has been so much
buzz we have all been desperate. It has been the
(38:39):
top of our to be read piles.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
It's a mystery, so we are adding a mystery to
our yup Tampong Gate Beach read mystery.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Bit of crime.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
So a brutal murder, a shameful past, a reckoning to come.
And it is written, as we said, by Angie Fay Martin,
who is a writer and editor Australian. I just am
very keen to get into that. So that can be
your other summer read. Very very different tonally to Emily Henry, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
I can't wait. Happy reading. Friends, tell us what we
got right and wrong? About m Hen Bye Bye Mamma.
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
we've recorded this podcast.
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast. Welcome out Louders to
our second Summer book Club episode. Now, I'm Hollywood, right,
I'm Jesse Stevens, and I'm Berner. And when we were
choosing our books for the Summer book Club, we're doing
three at least to start with. We wanted different kinds
(00:30):
of books.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Because our first book, of course, was All Fours by
Miranda July. Great comment in the out Louders Facebook group
from a woman who said, who would you cast? Which
I sometimes find that question hard, but she said for Davy,
she would cast Dave Franco and I haven't stopped thinking
about that. It's so so accurate. She just absolutely nailed it.
(00:52):
But our second one, we wanted a very different vibe.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And we have gone with a very different vibe. Our
second book is by Emily Henry and it's called Great, Big,
Beautiful Life. Now, this is my first m hen novel,
but she is huge. Em You tell us about em
hen She's massive.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Firstly, I'm so excited we did this book because I
wanted to do it because all my friends have read
it and I needed to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Have you read other Emily Henry book?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yes, I'm a new m hen fan, a new m
hen Stan. So Emily Henry was introduced in my life
around COVID time. She came out with a book in
twenty twenty called Beach Read that immediately sold millions of copies,
and she became so so famous, and since then she's
been producing romance novel after romance novel every single year since,
(01:44):
and all bestsellers. In five my best sellers, they're all
going to be made into movies and TV shows. One
of her books, People we Meet on Vacation, is currently
getting made into a Netflix movie.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Of course it is, Yes, the two.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Other books I've read, so she does a lot of
like romantic tropes, right, she does like excess to lovers,
colleagues to lovers, enemies to lovers.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
She's considered a romance writer to a point, but she's
broken through out of that genre into mainstream.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And the two books I've read from hers is Funny Story,
which is about roommates to lovers, and another one called
Happy Plays. And this book is like the book that
everyone loves from her. It's about X's going into lovers
and I have a friend who listens to it as
an audiobook probably three times a year.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Really, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
What I found interesting two things about Emily Henry that
I found on my googling. The first is that she's
a year younger than me, which I don't appreciate at all,
because she has written I think she's written more than
ten books. She's written ten books, and.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
How many have you done?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I have only done two, and none of them are
New York Times bestsellers. I'll tell you that or made
into Netflix shows. And the second thing is that she
started in young adult and I think that that's an
important detail because that made me understand the style of
her writing a little bit more. I think that's why
she is so accessible. Young adult is this for a
(03:10):
long time. It's been this massive genre that we obviously
miss but captures a lot of teens adolescents and then
gets them into kind of adulthood. But that's where she started,
so I think she wrote, you know, four books or
whatever in that and then moved on to adults.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I've noticed that her protagonist in her books like
grow with her, So she's also capturing like women my age,
but also women in my sister's age, who's in her
early twenties. Because I feel like I always read these
sorts of books when I was younger because I'd like
to see older.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, right, yes, yeah, And do you think that with
Emily Henry we are promised a happy ending?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Is that the right?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, the definition of a romance book is a happy ending. Okay, yes, absolutely,
And looking at it's really interesting because looking at some
of the reviews of this on Goodreads and stuff, so
she has a rabbit fan base, like they are obsessed
with her. They're hanging out for the next one. A
year is too long to wait. A lot of people
have said this is her first book that isn't strictly
(04:08):
romance because it has the whole double plot situation going on,
and there's some of them liked it and some of
them didn't for that reason. But yes, you are pretty
much guaranteed a romance and a happy ending with an
m N book. Shall we talk a little bit about
what this one's about. Yes, So this one is about
a writer called Alice Scott. She is in her early thirties,
(04:30):
thirty three. She is tall and good looking.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
She travels to an island in Georgia and southern USA
to obstensibly interview with the view to writing a biography
of a reclusive, very famous American heiress who's now elderly.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I saw her as a this Margaret Ives who she's
interviewing as sort of succession Murdock.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Literally I had that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Like that kind of Kennedy. Yeah, a little bit Kennedy, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Clearly super famous as one of the big themes the
book is about that, like she's so hounded by the
press her life to see who she's going to marry,
what she's going to do.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
But also her family was the press, which I thought
was yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
And so Alice travels to the island to meet Margaret
and obsensibly write this book. But there is another writer
there with whom she must compete, and he is a
Pulitz Surprise winning journalist called Hayden Anderson. He is also
very tall. He's very tall and very broody, very tall
and very broody.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
And he has written a book, a former Politz Surprise
winning book, which I just every time it was described,
I was.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Like, I want to be reading that book. It's got
a really good purpose.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's about a man named Lynn, a famous man named Lynn,
who knows that he has dementia in and he's losing
so many of these memories.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So he writes the book back to front. Oh, it's
really clever.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So he is my clever guy who writes the kind
of books Jesse wants to read, and she they have
to compete. Right now, if you're listening to this, you've
read the book, you know what happens. But I want
to talk a little bit about the hero about Hayden,
because what I've come to understand from doing a bit
of reading about romance lately is there are a few
different kinds of romantic hero Right. There's the alpha asshole
(06:18):
who's sometimes called the alpha hoole, who is like ripe
for redemption. There's a romance writer I know, and all
her heroes are alpha men who women can bring to
their knees, do you know what I mean? So there's
that kind of guy. But apparently Hayden is termed a
cinnamon role. Did you know that? Oh? No, So cinnamon
role characters are a romantic archetype. Obviously, they offer a
(06:41):
comforting alternative to aggressive alpha hole heroes, sweet and kind.
They might be grumpy on the surface, but sweet and
kind supportive acts as the heroine's biggest cheerleader, emotionally open
in touch with their feelings, unlike traditional growth heroes respectful.
So there was treat women with respect and they have
a relatively gentle demeanor. Now it's interesting because when I
(07:04):
read that, and there's piece of the New York Times
about m said that she always writes a lot of
cinnamon roles, that they're the kind of man who respects
everything the main female character has feelings about and never
tries to dominate her or take over her life. And
I've found this really interesting because old fashioned romance novels,
the heroes the object of a woman's affection is very
(07:26):
often a dickhead who somehow has to be redeemed. But
it felt like because I was feeling like I was
reading a millennial kind of romance for the first time.
We don't want that. They don't want that, you know
what I mean. You don't want this guy who's going
to be a dickhead and maybe string you along and
not call you back and all those things. You want
a cinnamon roll who is a guy who is sexy
(07:47):
and there's a little bit of chase there, but he's
always going to be nice to you.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That's so true because even with the other two books
of Hers I've read, both of the male characters have
been very similar to Hayden, and it's always they find
the girl very like silly and quirky, but also endearing.
And then there comes to a point where she's like,
I have to do this on my own and he's like,
I respect that.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yes he's not, he does respect. Like. The thing that
I found interesting is that the first book of this
kind of like that's millennial romance, I think is I
found there was a lot of reference to wearing sunscreen,
a lot of adding salads, a lot of brown sugar
ice lattes, and a lot.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Of explicit reference to a common.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Dooms and consent, and like it's all very like sensible.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
You know, and it's a very female gaze. It's incredibly
that's exactly what it is. And unapologetically, did we like Hayden?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Are we hot for Hayden?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I didn't feel hot for Hayden, but I read that
it's kind of the grumpy chirpy dichotomy, which I felt
and which grated on me at first, and then I.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Got used to because she is so our heroine. Alice
is a relentless optimist, who wears bright colors, wears little skirts,
is always smiling, is always happy, which is quite unusual
for a journalist. I do have to say, yeah, yeah,
but that's her, and he on the surface, even though
he's the cinnamon roll like nice guy on the surface,
is a bit grumpy and a bit unapproachable.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Which I was just thinking, Yeah, and I suppose that
this is, you know, a trope as old as time.
But if someone is that, like he was so unappealing
at the beginning and borderline rude and dismissive of her,
the idea that then he turns out to be someone
who's misunderstood and misread. I kind of didn't immediately buy,
(09:36):
like I was with him by the end, but I
think I do find that trope a little grating.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, and even the contrast between what she thinks of
him versus what her friends in the group chat think
of him, because I feel like, if this was real
and my friend was talking about this guy who I
know is an awful guy, and she's like, he's really
actually really nice, one to get to know him, like,
shut up.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, And if everyone else finds him cold and aloof
and rude and cynical and hard work. I was really
interested in the scene and we'll get to this where
he meets her mum.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I just thought that's where it all comes out.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, what's it going to be like when you introduce
this person to other people? Because the idea that just
you understand him and it's just to you that he
opens up and he.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Becomes this like you know, that is a trope is
all of time because women this generalizing about romantic tropes,
not talking about real life love. The idea of the
hero that you have to crack open, right that everybody
else might think is a dick, but you know, is
a really lovely person and he's just shy or whatever.
But I think in this instance, like it's quite quick
(10:43):
that she realizes that he's okay. She just finds him
very intimidating. But we know he wrote that lovely book
about that old man, so we know that he's a
man capable of emotional depth and who got very attached
to his subject there and all those things.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
But he was quite rude at the beginning, like the
idea that she kind of didn't have a chance, and
there was an arrogance to him.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Yeah, he was like, I'm not the kind of person
who'll just be polite.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yeah exactly, it's like, just be nicer.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And I.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Found her and I just didn't feel like she was
this well rounded character. And I found her kind of
bubbliness almost annoying and childish like that I kind of
wanted a bit goodsy girl.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah exactly. She was a bit pixie girl.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And the way that she kind of pandered to everyone
and was just ridiculously lovely, I just thought.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I don't know anyone like that.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I think also with her being alone on the island,
she was just making decisions that I felt like weren't
so true, like going to a bar and seeing two
couples at the bar and wanting to be sat in
between them.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Yeah, there's just like weird little things.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I was like, that feels And now you're best friends
with the bar owner and going to his birthday.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, I didn't mind that. Like we're supposed to think
that she's an extravert, right, it's all the way through it.
She talks about that I like going out, I like socializing,
I like people. She likes talking to people. That's why
she is at the kind of journalist she is. She
likes going and finding out stories and all those things.
That is a real thing. Like a lot of writers
are very solitary, introverted people. But if you've got to
(12:14):
go and get stories out of people, you have to
be good with people. Have you met Trendall very good
with people? Like you have to win them over. You
have to stroke an ego. You have to not be
scared to walk up to a stranger and ask them
a question like you know what I mean? Yeah, very true,
that was I didn't find that too untrue. I wanted
to know like that she wasn't super insecure, like you know,
(12:34):
if that was a full that would have been too much.
She was yeah, and she knew she was kind of
hot and attractive and whatever. And she has this situationship
going on with THEO.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
THEO is who I wanted to hear more from.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh No, I thought that was great.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I thought the THEO storyline was so real.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
It was too real.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
The way in which.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Her friends said THEO only like he is always laying
the groundwork for you to invite him for you twinn shate,
I was like, I have been in that dynamic so
many times. The canceling last minute, I just felt like
THEO she nailed.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
It with that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Her friend's just saying, as long as you're getting what
you want out of this, and you both know that
you're not.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
You're not, but that there's no other options. So you're like,
I'm really just here for the scraps. At the moment,
we are going to take a break, and when we
come back, I want to tell you about the turning
point for me in this Bookay.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
The reason why this book is a bit different, as
far as I can tell from what people have told
me about other m M novels, is that it's quite
actually quite ambitious in its scope. Right. So we've got
this storyline that we've just outlined with Alison Hayden and
will they won't they? And we all know that no will,
but how and how good will it be? Etc. But
the other storyline we have going through it is the
woman they've both come to try and win over interview,
(13:48):
Margaret Ives, who is our heiress. She's now in her
eighties and she has this fascinating story to tell. Now,
interesting choice as a writer to decide that you've got
your relatively straightforward romance here and then you're going to
weave in this quite complex backstory of Margaret's which goes
several generations back to great grandfather and who he married
(14:11):
and there blah blah blah blah, and then her dad
and her mum and her sister and all this.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I found they're very confusing.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Now, I found it quite confusing at times, but lots
of people have called this out as being quite derivative
is probably too strong a word. Reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins
reads Evil and Hugo the Seven Husbands now at Taylor.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Jones and The Six I think it was a mixture
of those two.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, because in that a journalist is interviewing a woman
about her life and her loves and new kind of
feeling that it's going.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
To happen, and Taylor Jenkins read blurbed.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, she's clearly a fan of m Hen's. I think
that's you know, their their buddies whatever. But a few
people have said is similar to that. But I think
Emily Henry was obviously taking a swing to do something
different with this book in that it has more depth
and more scope. But did that work? I loved it.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
It was my favorite part of it.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I found that I was looking forward to those chapters.
I really liked the the complexity of the family dynamics.
If you told me that that was a big part
of the book, I don't think it would have sold me.
But for some reason, every time I hit one of
those chapters, I went, oh, I really like this, and
I loved the device she used, which was what the
headline said and then what was actually going on behind
(15:26):
the scenes. I thought it was really true to the
complexity of family and how there was a sibling who
felt like they had less attention or a really complicated father.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
I thought that for the way in which the.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Two protagonists were caricatures, to me, I felt like these
weren't caricatures. It read almost like a history book, and
I really liked that.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, I didn't like the Margaret story. Every time I
got to like the chapter where it was like chapter
seventeen and then the story, I was.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Like, oh, so that's really.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Because you two are basically opposites in this. You were
happy days. I love that, and you were like, oh no,
let's get back, get back to the Georgia, tell me
tell the small Why did you not like it?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I think because I don't want to compare, but because
I had read Evelyn Hugo first I think also with
the Taylor Jenkins read going into the Evelyn Hugo story,
and it was also similar things like the big obstacle
in both of these women's stories, like Margaret and Evelyn
Hugo was like the paparazzi were insane. And I felt
(16:28):
that more with Evelyn Hugo when you get to the
climax of the story that you can see how bad
it was for her. And I feel like this one
was just too rushed because I think we were also
dealing with the other story, like god, rushed is not a.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Word I would use.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Okay, I know what you mean.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
There's too many people. I forgot the name. I did
think there were too many people.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And I'm often a defender of that because people said
that about my last book, that there may be too
many people, and.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
You know, you had that I think I needed in this.
I needed a family family tree.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
But like for me, and I'm interested for Jesse to
tell me her turning point right because for me, the
first half of this book, I was like, this is
moving too slowly. I don't care about anybody. I'm kind
of over this, Like I don't want to know about
great granddad and da da da da dad. I don't
really care about all of that. And then in the
back half, or maybe certainly the back third, I was
(17:20):
totally engrossed in that story, like when it got to
her sister and the cult and what's his name? Cosmo,
who was a little bit I'm convincing, but the husband
and that kind of stuff, Like then I was in it.
And that was when I sort of started really page turning.
But I think this book is too long for what
it is. I genuinely do.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, right, okay, So I read the first chapter and went,
I don't know how I'm going to get through this.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I hate it.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I hated the way it was written. I didn't want
to spend time with the main character. I found her irritating.
I thought this is a bad Netflix movie and book form.
And then I thought this is a way less sophisticated
Taylor Jenkins read and I was going, what is the appeal?
And then I got something happened around page one hundred.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I know, I kind of want a page one hundred.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, maybe there was something sex that happened, and they
just totally got me in.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
I also found like.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
In those first one hundreds it was all about croissants
and what coffee she ordered, and she loved this way
and that way, like that is so far. I felt
like there were all these extraneous details that I went,
is this really you don't like that?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Like I love the description of like the coffee shop,
and like has she had the green tea by accident
and it burnt her lips its sweaty and shay.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I like all that too, But I wrote down in
my notes very similar thing to Jesse, which is like
some thing's way too detailed, and then strangely something's not
at all, Like I now I'm in an apartment that
I've rented in the woods, Like what.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
When did you?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
How did you find that place? I don't get it,
but I understand why she puts in all the latte
cafe whatever, because people love that. Young people love that shit.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I was in my head, I'm Alice, so I want
to be Alice, and I want to make the decisions.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I went to Little Croissant too many times, and I
was half listening to the audiobook and half reading it,
and every time the audiobook person said little Croissant, I
was like, okay, that's just.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
But then it picked up for you and for you,
it was around one hundred. For me, I think it
was a bit further on where finally I kind of
when all the strands started coming together, because you know,
they're going to write in a book like this, and
that isn't a criticism, Like any writer of any skill
is going to bring all their threads together. That's what
they're there for. So when that started to happen for me,
(19:35):
the momentum started to move and I was like, Okay,
now I'm in it. Whereas the first half I was
kind of like meandering around, didn't know why, you know,
and that's part of a device, like you're not supposed
to know why. But I was definitely in danger of
wandering off, getting on the ferry and getting off the island. Yeah,
I felt I didn't and I'm glad I did it.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, I guess it.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Around that point I went. It reminded me of when,
because I guess I read books for lots of different reasons.
I love insights and observation. This didn't have a lot
of that, I don't think. Maybe towards the end there
was some commentary on the human condition and life that
I found kind.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Of mothers and sisters and family.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That got there for me, But certainly in the first
third there was nothing where I went, oh, that's a
clever observation, or like, that's an interesting thing I haven't
heard before. But by that point I went, I'm here
for the plot and I think I care how this
plays out, which which, yeah, then.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I was because what you're hanging out to find out
in this book is obviously there's the will they won't they?
And I was discussed we know they will, but how
Then there's the why? Why is this old lady making
these writers comparted?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I reckon I'd picked by page one hundred that she
had some relationship to Hayden, because I've seen it Neville
and Hugo. There's a movie called Lee and it's got
Kate Winslet, and it is about a war photographer and
she's telling her life story to this journalist and he
kind of doesn't know why him. It's the same thing.
(21:09):
And then you've just covered in the notebook device, Yeah,
that I've just seen the.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Year, But I didn't know what it was going to be, Okay,
yeah I didn't. I mean I knew that obviously there
had to be a reason, and so I kind of
wanted to know that, and then as I got more
into the family's story, I wanted to know what was
going to happen to the sister and all that kind
of stuff. Like I did want to know all that.
So I guess I was Paige turning for that. But
(21:36):
were you what did you want to know?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Firstly, my turning point was when there was a fire
and then he saved her from that creepy man.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Oh ye didn't that.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
I forget about that, Like we're in boys.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I knew that was going to happen.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Yeah, that was quite nice, But I did not like
the ninety.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
She was wearing the y there was three quarters a lot,
but she know that was part of her whole season.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
But then they went to a diner and I was like,
she's still in a ninety Ye.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I also know like she had like a bit of
makeup on curls and her hair.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, and I worried about his sleep. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Not getting and also we're going to get to the
juicy stuff. But go on, Cecil, Yeah, not doing a
good job of hiding. No, was wandering around, although I
have to say that when it turns up that like
get the photo of cecil with the long hair. I
knew obviously it had to be connected, but I didn't
pick it. And then suddenly you're like, oh, that man
(22:37):
looks familiar in the back of that foot. Oh it's
with the long hair, Like when I didn't see that
coming from, which I definitely picked that Jody was either
going to be a daughter or a niece or something.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I knew that I thought maybe Laura.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
It might be Laura. I thought it might be her sister.
When we come back, we got to get to the
sex scenes, because I think that's a large part of
why people like these books.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I have some concents.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So back to the romance. As you've already flagged. The
moment where slightly gruffed, slightly unavailable, but very hot Hayden
begins to show his cinnamon role credentials is when he
saves her from the creepy man outside the hotel when
fire alarm goes off.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, and he puts his arm around her waist and
then they walk off together and then she's like, Okay,
good night, and he's like, no, I want to get
breakfast with you.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
They're liking in breakfast at night. That's one of their quirks.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, yeah, and I also I worried about I know
she's only thirty two, thirty three, but in terms of
cholesterol and blood pressure, it's just the next ten years,
they're not going to be kind. I just she there
was a lot of funny that you say that, because
for me, I felt there was too much reference to salad.
Yeah maybe for him, and she ate well when she
was with her mum, But when she was I just went,
we can make pancakes every day. Yeah, We're gonna have
(23:51):
pancakes and chrissals every day. She's having coffee at night.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
She went, honey, mate, if I was on the island,
I did quite enjoy being on the island. If I
was on the island writing a story and I was her,
I would have been brunting every day for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Oh I would too, but I would be the can't
get up a bit exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So that's where we begin to see the romance blossom.
Like we know it's going to happen, right, and he's
hot and she's hot, and it doesn't take him too
long to declare his affection. No, but we feel about
it moves quite fast.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Had someone like with romance being quite fresh to me.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I quite liked and I knew that this was a formula,
but like the device of we can't and then it's
a kiss, and then we can't. We can't, but it
was just a hug but blah, but blah, and.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Then people in their thirties can be horny too, exactly,
it's not just for us twenty.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I really liked so the first kind of proper sex
in the storm. I thought the storm was right, like
natural disaster.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
That was he comes to save her.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, but here's my consent.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
He didn't need to save hers. She'd saved herself. She's
a modern heroine. No, she hadn't charged her phone, she
hadn't changed her phone, which is a problem. She knew
what to do. I like that she knew what to
do in the store to do, she got all the
things and she.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Was like, I respect that she got your clothes.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
And then I love the fact that obviously this was
a device that like she was the one who really
wanted them to have sex, and he was this is
Very was the one Very And she's like, let's have sex,
and he's like, no, no, you much.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Never ever had that experience in my life.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
I had that experience. I'm just here.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
She's had this day, if my memory serves me correctly
interviewing Margaret, quite a sweaty, hot day. Then she gets
home and she decides, even though a storm's about to come,
that she's not going to have a shower, that she's
just going to wash her face right, And then he
comes over. I thought about this too, and also in
my head, I'm going, oh, no, you haven't had a shower.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Was what underwear are you wearing?
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Because I know it's not the good pairs, it's not
the good pair.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And then the storm's over, and then he decides to
perform a sexual action.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I'm going, no, no, no, no, she's oh my god.
I didn't even think about it. Oh oft into it,
I was.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Like, no, honey, you need a minute.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Actually, the sex scene that I thought was hot, I
think it happens before that. But well, when they're in
the woods and he's like strong at the beach, like
I was like, that's hot, but like she didn't clarify
what position they were in, because I thought they were
standing at the beach and then suddenly they were spooning.
Because there's a lot of what when I was young
(26:41):
We used to call it frontage, which is like when
you're like not having sex, but you're having sex, you
or have been through the lots of Like, there's lots
of that, which I found quite hot. I didn't actually
find the sex scenes hot though, really not really no,
too many adjectives. There was a lot of adjective, very
hard to write sex. It's so even when he was
using her hand, that was kind of hot, but again
(27:05):
didn't quite Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Yeah, maybe we've lived too long.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I think it's because we went from our first book,
which had a literal tampon play.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, no, that's true, to this and I with the audiobook,
which apparently has won awards, and I have some notes,
but it was just the woman who was doing it
would be like, oh, like it was him like huffing
and put on this gravelly voice, and I was just
like I got the every time she did that.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So I have to say that I quite enjoyed the audiobook.
I think that's because I was doing the same. I
listened to some of it and the pace was good
on that. But you're right, you don't need to do
the man's voice. No, don't do the man's voices too distract.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Especially during the sex scenes. I found that a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
So when he's fully revealed to be the lovely, wonderful
man is as Jesse's already referenced when they go to
her mother's obviously, I am in love with the mother's house.
I just want to move in with the mom. She's
got me all the time, She's cooking lots of yummy,
healthy food. They're having a good time. Mom doesn't talk much.
Mom's very like closed off genexa.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And on the way home, he really does show his
hand as being the sensitive new age dude, the cinnamon
roll guy, because he's like, you need to talk to
your mom about how you feel about each other. I
don't agree, and she was like yes.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
She was like, but no, I don't Exactually, you know
my mom for five seconds and you come into my bar.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Going you hang your mom? Tell me why exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
She's very proud of you. She just doesn't you need
to talk to her about it? No, what did you think?
Speaker 4 (28:33):
The formula? And there was a point at which I
went did AI not write it? But help? Could this
be written by Ai? Is?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Because it got to a point and I went three
to one fight like there was that needed to happen.
It kind of needed to be inspired by her, probably
needed like chapter or two where they were a bit cold,
and then they would get back on with the natural disaster.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
The thing is, Jesse, is that is literally a romance formula.
I talked about it on out Loud a while ago.
I went to a romance writing workshop. And you have
to do that. You've got the build to get together,
the obstacle, the fight, the separation, the resolution. Is there
anything wrong with that? That's the question. Because people love
these books and they know, like you know when on
the first minute you meet him, that those two are
(29:22):
going to be married by the and you know that.
But I don't think you're reading a book like this
for the surprise. You're reading it for the journey, like
you know what I am.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
But I think that at this cultural moment, I am
resisting formula because of my terror towards AI, because I'm
going Emily Henry, who is releasing a book a year,
all of which are best sellers, and the publishing industry
needs one hundred more Emily Henry's like these could be
pumped out by a chat pot.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
I truly believe that, I truly believe.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
That that's one of the first genres that because there
is such formula, and say what you want about all
fours don't know what the.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Formula was there?
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Who knew where that was going.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
It's like the Netflix romance, which is.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
What I love, like I have to not know, but
I can also see the appeal of nothing like being
safe in a happy ending.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, which is also what Netflix wants at the moment
with even like the Summer I Turned Pretty or whatever.
I wondered if it was similar genre wise to that.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
There was a lot of wandering around in that too,
many many matches, many many ice lattes, and many many
We could have got this over within ten minutes.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Did they go for a lot of walks because there's
a lot of walks.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
There's a lot of walks, Jane Austin, But you love
these books, and why do you love a happy ending?
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I think because exactly what you said, I know exactly
what I'm going to get out of it, so it's
always a safe read for me, whereas there sometimes where
I'll be reading I think it was Long Island Compromise.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
I read that is that is a yes, but it's
called Long Island Compromise.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
It sounds like it's going to be fun.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
It sounds like it's going to be a beech read.
So I took it to the beach and I read it,
and it ruined my whole family holiday because I was
just so closed off from everyone. And I think these
week with Emily Henry, like she's a safe author where
if we were to take this to our family holiday,
we know exactly what we're going to get out of
it and still feel good because we're reading a book.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's a perfect summer read, like that's often been dismissed
like beach reads, summer reads, holiday reads, and women's fiction
is dismissed anyway. And she's written about that herself and said,
you know, if all the characters in my books were men,
they would be viewed differently. And I think that's true.
There's nothing wrong with that as long as you know
what you're getting in my opinion, like I don't think.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
So what do you think?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And this has been discussed online and something that I
pondered when I finished it, What do you think this
book is about?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So? I think it's about family, and I think it's
about loss, like it's about our girl Alice, although she's
very perky. She's still grieving loss of her dad relatively recently.
And there's always if a character in a book has
lost a parent, they were always perfect, always yeah, unless
it's a different kind of book altogether. And so she's
losing her dad to whom she was very close. The
(32:07):
thing that I found was weirdly unresolved was there's also
a lot of references to her sister and her sister's
illness when she was young. I was so expecting to
meet the sister at some point in this book. I'm like,
why am I finding out so much about this sister
if she's never going to wander into the plot. She doesn't.
She doesn't turn up, does she.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I think that that was about sibling dynamics, and so
was Lily obviously, yes, Laura, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Laura, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
And in that way, I think it's a book about love,
but she broadened it out from romantic love, because even
from every generation in that family, it was about the
type of love they had for their wife, or the
type of love they had for their child, or the
type of even Laura's devotion to her grandfather and all
these complications and like the idea of a love that
(32:52):
you'd give anything for and how sometimes that's a sister
or that's it.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
And Alison Hayden like they were both the younger sibling
with older siblings and their parents both really like their
older siblings, and they felt like they were kind of
left out in that comparis.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It's interesting Jesse, because of course it is about love.
And she tells us that at the end, because that's
the book that Alice is writing, where she's like, all
I ever want to write about is love. But like
every book in a way is about love, like in
some four.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Can I be honest, I don't want to read Alice's
book about life and her parents.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
This pitch is not.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
But you know what I did like and I know
that this just speaks to me. I was quite happy
with where they ended up. I'd like to know what
em thinks about this. I was quite happy that she
didn't go back to la I was quite happy that
they moved to Atlanta and she was hanging out at
her mom's house. I liked all that. Did we like that?
Did we like what?
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Did I find the ending satisfying? Or did you wanted
to go back to being? That's the thing with the
second storyline. I feel like if we didn't have Margaret's storyline,
we would have more room to play with Hayden and
Alice because then for me, like all the time they
had sex ones, like he learned this whole big thing
about his family history and the first thing he asks
her is like, do you actually love me?
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yes, But that's because baby in the next page named
after the cult sister, which I thought was a little
bit too much visual.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, oh, I didn't mind that because I didn't really
need to like read all about them getting back to
get like that was fine. We only got one proper
sex scene, like as in the preditative sex scene, and
there was there were too many you. Yeah, he did
get a going to be safe, I know, which is
great and I'm all for it.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
But it's which is also a plot twist because then
they have the baby.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I think they've had sex later Yeah, but yeah, when
he turns up at the door and you think he's
going to talk about the family, but he's He's like,
that's all sorted. Me and Margaret have sorted that out.
I just need to know if you love me. And
it was like the letter and I'm like, what letter?
I didn't know about the letter.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
She did write a letter, didn't know who was too.
But also before that, she finds out this huge thing
about his family and she starts to fight with him.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah, that was weird. I would have just broken.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Though. That was a genuine dilemma. Don't you think what
you do? So she finds out that, as Jesse picked
on page four that Margaret is Hayden's grandma, she gave
up a child for adoption. I did think, Look, I
know that you're famous. In the paparazzi, you're annoying, but
they so annoying you're giving a child away, That's what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
I think the paparazzi has done so well in Taylor
Jenkins read and I needed more paparazzi hounding decision.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
But like I got it, But lots of famous, rich
people have children. You just build a wall around them,
like you know.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Yes, But then her and Cosmo or whatever is Cosmo.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
I also thought Cecil was Cosmo.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
The whole.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Joking, I don't know, but I did think that they're resisted,
like the fact that he hated them so much and
that kind of claimed his life. I thought that that
act of ultimate sacrifice was like this act of love
that I thought it worked for me.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So then when she finds all that out, and she's like, well,
my choices here are. I can either tell the money
I love that I know all these secrets about him
and maybe Margaret will sue me for millions of dollars.
Or I can break up with him and lose the
love of my life and go live with my mom.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I could just be with him and not tell him
the secret, and that it would.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Be very hard, yeah, because he's going to be like,
why what with the book? I don't understand, like blah, like, yeah,
she told him. She should have told him, because I
reckon that what I love is I probably would have
told him. And then between you, you could probably talk
Margaret out of suing you. Is Margaret really going to
sue you? Is she really taking you all the way
to court and sitting in a court room to go
(36:50):
through all this.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
On the public record and she's trying to be private.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, we needed a lawyer in this book to sort
this out exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I want to know what the out louders thought of Great, Big,
Beautiful Life. I saw a few comments saying I love this.
I can't wait to hear you talk about it, and
it is I feel like Emily Henry. If you are
going away and you just need escapism and you need
to know that your book isn't going to come with
a side of trauma, then probably you're Emily Henry.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Books are a great thing.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Funny Story is I reckon? This book sits in between
the other two. I read so funny story, this one
and then Happy Place.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
Okay, I might get onto funny story.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I was definitely swept away by the end. Like it
took me a while, as I said, and I was like, okay,
the pace is a little bit clunky for me. But
by the end, I was like, come on, I'm getting
it together. Come on, tell me what happened.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
People just love hot people.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
And they were both very hot and very tall. There
was lots of discussion of how tall they both are.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Probably watch an adaptation.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I would watch an adaptation for sure.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Out louders, thanks for being.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Lord, wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah? Is he bit young? Well he's not going to
be in it, is he? Because it's probably not. But
he's very tall.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Who she though.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I always wear skirts like a blonde Dakota Johnson.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, she could be Sydney Sweeney.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Oh she's too small.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Oh I think she's too short.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, she could be Emily Venon.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Emily, I'm Jocoberlordie out loudest.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Thanks for being a part of our second summer book club.
A reminder that the next book we are reading as
part of this book club is Mela Luka by Angie
Fay Martin. It is an Australian debut fiction book that
came out this year and there has been so much
buzz we have all been desperate. It has been the
(38:39):
top of our to be read piles.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
It's a mystery, so we are adding a mystery to
our yup Tampong Gate Beach read mystery.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Bit of crime.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
So a brutal murder, a shameful past, a reckoning to come.
And it is written, as we said, by Angie Fay Martin,
who is a writer and editor Australian. I just am
very keen to get into that. So that can be
your other summer read. Very very different tonally to Emily Henry, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
I can't wait. Happy reading. Friends, tell us what we
got right and wrong? About m Hen Bye Bye Mamma.
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
we've recorded this podcast.
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