India, June 3 -- Sometimes you get yourself a big, fat, shiny book and decide you're going to love it. But, a quarter of your way through it and you realise that your interest may not be necessarily waning. Yet, you continue and question whether this is what you really signed up for? Author Emily Henry's latest work, Great Big Beautiful Life leaves this reader wondering somewhat similar. This dazzling new novel's cover and plot both have the grandiose, the twists, and the trappings. But if you pick up this book in the hopes of flipping through a nemeses-to-lovers trope, here's an alert: you're going to be left high and dry! Past the point of the falsely-packaged 'romance', the author offers just about enough to have the Kindle-bound Sherlocks make it through to the end - a reclusive heiress, ironclad NDAs and a dance-off, albeit of words - Emily knows her craft well enough to have you not abandon the read halfway through. The final payoff, however, comes not from the mind-bending exhilaration that you expect from a mystery read, but more like the self-assuring 'ah' at the end of a fairly predictable slow burn. One thing Emily aces though is in her attempt of character building and painting the choicest picture, she uses words that aide her narrative. Alice brings the spark and her Pulitzer-winning opponent Hayden brings some empty depth. Yet anything around them, let alone between them, is drowned in the winding, spotlight-hogging lore of Margaret Ives' family. More than anything, what the book falls short on is expectations. You walk in expecting Emily to deliver a subtly racy romance against the backdrop of warring words and blue oceans. What you get instead are both, along with ample visual reprieve; but their merit stands robbed owing to the hollow, almost forced spot that Alice and Hayden are put in. The crescendo of a good romance read - though this isn't really what that is - is the big realisation of having fallen head over heels. But here's the thing, more than Alice herself, you will be confused as to how she got there! If you walk into this novel dismissing any expectations of a slow burn romance then it will be a fairly engaging read. But, if a slew of stolen glances and fluttering tension is what you're really after then you're better off without it. Either way, this book stands best defined by its lost potential. Title: Great Big Beautiful Life Author: Emily Henry Publisher: Penguin Random House India Price: Rs.899...