As a big lover of Sussmans last two books, I was so excited to receive an ARC of her next release, Totally and Completely Fine.
My goodness, it is a whirlwind of emotions!
Grief is always a tricky subject. How do you nail something that is universal, yet everyone experiences it differently? Elissa Sussman does just that.
This may be my favorite of her books. It’s certainly the most impactful, and the one that will stay with me the longest.
It’s a beautiful love/s story with complex emotions and dynamics. It’s funny and sexy and sweet and sad. I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Thank you to Random House and Net Galley for the ARC. This was a solid 4.5 ⭐️ read! I loved the connections back to Funny You Should Ask and thought the characters really shined in this one.

This book was totally and completely fine. Lauren is a widow who is navigating small town life with her teenaged daughter and movie star brother. His stardom has changed his family's life, including introducing the family to movie stars like Ben. Ben and Lauren fall in love, obviously, and while I liked how this story ended, I didn't love getting there. It felt like Sussman tried to take on too many topics with this one. The story got jumbled and the romance fell flat for me.

Cute but too fast!!! I cried like twice and I really think it could’ve been better if there had been a slower burn. But maybe that’s just me 🤷‍♀️

I was and remain a superfan of Elissa Sussman's Funny You Should Ask, a story that runs parallel to this one (the respective main characters are siblings). Unfortunately this book did not quite hit the high bar that one set. I did enjoy returning to the world of FYSA, and loved the unique characterization of Lauren, a single mom and young widow. This book centers one of my favorite tropes - normal person/famous person, plus an age gap and a pretty substantial amount of spice. Sussman is so good at dual timelines that aren't confusing, but I wasn't quiiiiite as engaged by the past timeline here as I would have liked. The fits and starts of the romance were constantly teetering between intriguing and infuriating, but I was rooting hard enough for Lauren and Ben to make up for it. Overall, this was easy to fly through and I appreciated the sometimes surprising, always tender ways that the cast of characters interacted and the way their stories resolved.

Another great read from Elissa Sussman! I’m usually not a fan of romances with major age gaps but this story actually had depth! Really enjoyed the backstory that led to the romance.

I feel like I’ve been waiting for Lauren’s story for years and it lived up to my expectations. This was a romance (both with her husband in the past and someone new in the present), but also a story about grief, moving on, and single parenthood. I loved both romances, but preferred the past with her husband Spencer. The last “then” chapter so bittersweet. The present romance with Ben was a little insta-lust, but still sweet.

I can totally see how this book would be a perfect fit for the right reader… I just didn’t really connect with the love story. That’s a me problem, though! I don’t like a large age gap between couples in romance (this one has a 10+ year age gap). What I do love about Elissa Sussman’s books is that she is great at writing female empowerment & the secondary characters are always fantastic. So even though the romance didn’t work for me, there was still a lot to love. Catching up with Gabe & Chani (from her first book) was awesome. The mother daughter dynamic between Lena & Lauren felt really authentic. Watching Lauren navigate her grief while parenting her daughter & also becoming vulnerable enough to fall in love again was really beautiful. 3.75 rounded up to 4

Elissa Sussman has become one of my favorite authors and I always look forward to her new books. I was so excited to get to review Totally and Completely Fine and it may be my favorite yet. I loved the second chance romance and it brought out all the feels - laughter, tears, and everything in between.

I adored every second of this steamy, laugh-out-loud, tearjerking book. It was a gorgeous exploration of grief and second chances at love, and I loved the dual timeline structure that showed us two different love stories happening side by side. I also really loved the representation of queerness and bisexuality in Ben's character, and appreciated the social commentary that the book offered as a whole!

I’ve loved all the books I’ve read by this author and this one was no exception. I’ll definitely be looking into her work in the future and I really enjoy the way she takes creative plots to the next level.

SUCH AN AMAZING BOOK! I love all of Elissa Sussman's books, and I thought that this captured the idea of love and grief in a digestable and poignant way. The characters were all well developed and I loved to see their evolution into better versions of themselves. Exploring the topic of grief in a romcom is something that is so rarely done because it does not take much for it to come off distasteful, but I was very impressed with Susssman's ability to pay homage and respect to the past marriage and celebrate it for how it changed the MC and then also supported the blossoming relationship as well.

Huge thanks to Elissa Sussman, Netgalley, and to Random House Publishing for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

This was really cute and also really heartfelt. Raising a teenager as a new widow, deciding whether you want to love again. I really enjoyed this novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you for the ARC!

I love me some Elissa Sussman but unfortunately this one just turned out to be a totally and completely fine read. It’s a tie-in to Funny You Should Ask as Lauren, the main character, is the older sister of Gabe from that and Chani also featured. Lauren lost her husband a few years ago and is living in her small town with her teen daughter and meets Gabe’s co-star Ben, who is 10 years younger than her, and sparks fly. Yet that seems to be it because unfortunately the book doesn’t do a great job with the rest of the attraction… they keep having sex and that’s about it? There’s no depth to the relationship. And Ben’s personality is just being a younger, hot British actor who happens to be bi? The dual storyline also features Lauren’s relationship with her dead husband but again, that story seems to skip the major parts and rushes to the end.
There was so much potential here but it seems like having spiciness was preferred over an actual story, sorry to say.

Totally and Completely Fine is a heartfelt exploration of grief, healing, and second chances. The story follows a widowed single mother as she navigates the aftermath of loss, while also helping her daughter cope with their shared sorrow. The book beautifully captures the emotional complexities of grief, portraying the protagonist’s struggle to find herself again while facing the possibility of new love.

This was such a cute celebrity romance. Very fast read with likeable characters who grow as the book progresses.

3.5 *. This is a story that follows Gabe’s sister from the author’s previous book Funny You Should Ask. The story follows Ben and Lauren’s romance. Lauren is a widowed mother of a teenage daughter, and there is a fair amount of story line focused on their fraught relationship. Ben is a town to act in a play (with Funny You Should ask characters Gage and Ollie) and starts a casual dating relationship with Lauren. The story follows their deepening relationship and how they overcome their complicated current and past relationships to move forward. This is not my favorite of the authors books. To me it was trying to tackle too many characters and subplots. I found myself losing interest one the storyline jumped into the past.

WOW. This felt like one of the most gut wrenching, heartfelt, intimate love stories. You could physically feel Lauren and Lena's grief for Spencer. The romance was so authentically done where it never once felt forced or disingenuous. I wanted to crawl into the pages of this book and give everyone a hug for all they've endured. I think the LGBTQ representation was so beautifully done and added such a here and now perspective. I loved the way the characters grew as people throughout this story. I will be thinking about this one for a long while to come.

A fantastic companion to Funny You Should Ask, featuring movie star Gabe Parker's sister Lauren, a single mum after her husband Spencer died three years prior. I how it cleverly weaved itself around FYSA (yay for more Gabe and Chani), examining Gabe and Lauren wrestling with decades of unaddressed grief and anger. I stayed up til 2am reading this book.

Present-day Lauren is strong and independent but vulnerable and frayed at the edges from a lifetime of loss. There's a sizzling chemistry with Ben, but feels pushes him away for being too young for her and on the verge of stardom which she's seen swallow Gabe whole.

It was so heartbreaking, poignant (omg the scarf had me tearing up) but also heartwarming with beautifully well-rounded characters. Its wonderful to see a female character who is sex positive and not some poor celibate widow. In flashbacks we see young Lauren and Gabe losing their father at a young age and subliminating their grief and anger with Lauren being a pot-smoking wild child slut-shamed by small town small mindedness, while Gabe developing an alcohol problem. Spencer also remains larger than life and gosh my heart broke for them to lose this sweet, dependable gorgeous man controlled by his pious mother. Ben was also another perfect match for the Lauren of today, patient, kind and letting Lauren set the pace.

A perfect ending for all the Parkers and yet, goddamnit I want more!

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Del Rey and NetGalley for the ARC.

Elissa Sussman does. Not. Miss!!!!! I am a rabid Elissa Sussman fan, and this is yet another 5-star read. Her exploration of grief is so beautifully done, and god do I love the two love stories. I love this so much.