An easy 4/5 star read, Elissa Sussman has done it again. Totally and Completely Fine is not your typical "romance" book, it dives into grief and tough relationships, and navigating the passage of time among those things. Completely relatable, and not reminiscent of any other book of its genre, in my opinion. Small town vibes, close-knit (pun intended) family with real, complicated human issues? Sign me up. This is a perfectly done age-gap romance, and thank you for providing FMC characters my age.

As usual a lovely cover design as well.

Also, I walked away from this book wanting even more of Gabe and Chani's story - Elissa, please, I can't be the only one! Give the people what they want!

Reasons I read everything Elissa Sussman writes:

-I can never guess how she's going to get where she's going (her storylines are unpredictable)
-she's not afraid to write women who walk the line between likeable and unlikable (and someone falls in love with them anyway)
-I love the celebrity/normal person trope

This isn't my favorite Sussman for two reasons:

-everything wraps up too easily and quickly at the end
-it's mostly fade-to-black. This relationship revolves around sex but it skips those scenes. It wasn't completely closed-door, because details leaked out retroactively and there's on-page sex at the end, but I felt like I was missing half of what the story was about.

Hollywood meets small town in a romance between a widow and a very famous actor who is also best friends with her brother. Back and forth between the past and the present, between her late husband and her current love and the conflict resolution that allows her to move forward. Sweet, sexy and honest about grief.

I'll put this into the genre of a woman finding her path in life after a major upheaval, with romance woven in.

Lauren is practically drowning from grief, doing her best to keep afloat for her daughter. Then she meets Ben on the set of her brother, Gabe's, newest film. What she thinks will be a quick fling that provides a bit of happiness in her life turns into something more.

Overall, the story was nice and a good read for anyone that enjoys a second chance in your life story.

A sequel or continuation of Funny You Should Ask - a book that I really enjoyed. Totally and Completely Fine is similarly engaging with the appropriate amount of angst. The female main character is finding her footing and identity following the death of her beloved spouse. Entertaining and fast moving- a strong rom com read.

Oh my goodness.

A story about old love, grief, family dynamics, new love, and friendship. I really enjoyed watching Lauren's relationships with everyone and watching her grow throughout the novel. It took me a while to warm up to Ben, and with their relationship, as I wasn't feeling the chemistry. However, once we ended up back in Cooper, I was utterly charmed by the cast of characters and found myself wanting to be their neighbor.

A touching story that left me with tears, laughs, and moments that will stick with me for a while.

Elissa Sussman is on my automatic buy author list. Her writing always intrigues the reader immediately, both with the plot and the characters. She always has a dual timeline element, and I thought that was geniusly executed in this book, especially since we get to see how she fell in love with her husband before he died and how that impacted her relationships now. It also gave a lot of depth to her brother's relationship with her. I think Elissa's team missed marketing this as a companion novel to Funny You Should Ask because the main characters from that book, Gabe and Chani, were not just in the background of the book, but actively a part of the plot since Gabe is Lauren's brother.

Now, I can rave about Elissa's writing all day, but clearly, I gave this book a 3-star rating. I had a good time reading and found it a quick read, but there were a couple of things I didn't like. For starters, every single enemy or person in Laurens' life that she hated was a Christian. I am the first one standing up for people who have church hurt; I always say religion is a bunch of imperfect people trying to show a perfect God, but this was a crazy amount of genuine hatred. Like her mother in law was a true B*tch, but it was like she was blaming it all on her being a Christian, or her best friend who stopped being her friend and went to Christianity. It felt like a big Us vs them situation, which made me feel really icky. I didn't mind too much until she was talking about her dead husband to her child and said he's not like that anymore, "he didn't know any better"............ Again, I am alllll for expressing hurt and frustration from someone who weaponizes God against people, but not all Christians are like that; there are actually a lot of Christians who are really accepting of lgbtq+ community, and it felt like a big generalization that all Christianity was like that horrible church the mother in law went to. On a completely different note, I saw someone else comment on this too, but I felt like this entire book was throwing in a bunch of sad tropes that made pretty much everyone in this book a victim in some way or form; cancer, dead dad, lgbtq+, "only jewish person in a 50 mile radius", age gap, addict, mean Christian mother in law, small town where people gossip, etc. It felt like a lot. I enjoyed certain conversations, like one where Ben (MMC) was talking about his experience coming out with Laurens' daughter, but it felt muddled by everything else going on. Like having representation to just have it in there with genuine no furthering of the plot (aside from that convo). It had me genuinely rolling my eyes and screaming "SHUTUPP!! I just want to see her growth with her grief!!!". I'm assuming a lot of these tropes are important to her, and I possibly would have liked them if they were in their own book, but not all thrown in one; especially since the book isn't very long.

Back to things I liked, though, WOW! The talk about grief cut like a knife. truly amazing, and having just lost someone close to me recently (not a spouse, so not exactly the same), it was beautiful reading Lauren having moments where grabbing tools or the name of a dessert just reminds you of the person, and it takes you a second to recover. I also liked the acknowledgement that ignoring and not talking about the problem doesn't fix grief, but can harm relationships with others- it was nice to read. Reading the acknowledgments and seeing she was going through a loss of her own while writing this book, it made so much sense. Glad I got to experience her point of view, and I thought it was the best part of the book.

Overall, I had a fine time reading this book. This definitely wasn't my favorite of her books, but her writing and specifically her portrayal of grief made me happy that I read it. Will definitely read any other books she comes out with, but this one is not on the top of my list to recommend compared to her other books. Gabes' book is great though!!

Totally and Completely Fine tells the story of love, loss, family, and healing. Through flashbacks of Lauren’s past during her relationship and marriage to Spencer, to the present and her relationship with Ben, we follow Lauren’s story as a woman in her forties rediscovering herself, navigating grief and motherhood, and the trials of growing up and becoming a single mother in a small town. It was refreshing to have a cast of characters in their 30s and 40s, and watching them all deal with different real-life, relatable situations. From starting over, to questioning life choices, and worrying about what’s next. I do recommend reading Funny You Should Ask first, as the main characters from that story are heavily featured in this one.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Dell for this ARC!

1 star

This book is an absolute nightmare.

Has this author ever seen how real people behave? Immediately jumping in the car with a man you’ve met for 3 seconds and proposing sex is not normal behavior. Recognizing that you suffered from having no one to talk to about your parent who died as a teenager and then not seeing you’re doing the same thing to your teenage is not normal behavior. The character was just completely fine with repressed emotions and I get that’s the title of the book but could we have at least seen some self awareness?? Honestly maybe it gets better but I had to DNF at chapter 12 because I hated it so much.

In small town Montana, Lauren balances raising a thirteen-year old, greiving the love of her life, and being the sister of a famous movie star. While visting her brother on set, she finally allows herself to be bold and flirt with Ben, the younger sexy costar. Of course it's wonderful, but a real relationship in Cooper, MT would never work, right?

This is my favorite of this set of novels. I think it balanced lighthearted romance with the lows of life. I particularly appreciate the depiction of queerness and losing a parent young.

3.75/5

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful story of two loves and grief. This was such a unique book and had so many layers. I also loved the parenthood angle with her daughter

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC!

The only other book that I have read by Elissa Sussman was "Funny You Should Ask", and I was SO excited that I was able to get a glimpse of Gabe and Chani from a different perspective. I love when authors are able to incorporate their characters into various books, it immediately had me more invested when I realized that Lauren is Gabe's sister.

As you are reading, Elissa included flashbacks from Lauren's entire life, starting with her childhood and working their way up to present day. It was nice to have more of a backstory for Lauren and helped me really resonate with the grief that she was dealing with throughout the book. This book touched on grief, family trauma, alcoholism, and somehow was still light hearted and had me kicking my feet/giggling at certain areas.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the banter between characters, especially between Ben and Lauren. I appreciated the relationship between Lauren and her daughter Lena as well. I think that Elissa Sussman did a great job representing the relationship between a single mother and a grieving teenage daughter.

If you loved "Funny You Should Ask", I would definitely recommend you pick up this book. It took me right out of my reading slump!

This book just wasn’t for me. It started out really good and I could see the depth in what was going on in the main characters life and dealing with grief. Enter the romance and it started to fall apart. I’m not a fan of insta love/lust and I just felt like we didn’t see a lot of relationship building, but the random graphic innuendos were frequent. I also felt like the book was trying to check boxes of inclusivity. It didn’t add anything to the story and felt forced. I really liked her last book, but struggled to get through this one. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Lauren is a widowed mother, sister, daughter, friend, who is just trying to keep it all together in her small Montana town. Overall, I enjoyed this book with its quirky storytelling. We feel drawn into many of the emotions that Lauren experiences. Between then and now we are able to hear about her life growing up in a Montana town as well as her grief of losing both her father and her husband while she navigates life. She has an unexpected romantic interest, as well raising her daughter through her grief and also dealing with her daughter‘s grief…
Overall a good read, with both humor and tears.,
Thanks for the ARC!

Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman

Really, really loved this one. No surprise there — I’ve been a fan of Elissa’s writing for a long time. But it always feels so good when they prove you right! And it was such a joy to get a new perspective to Gabe and Chani’s story as well. You could absolutely read this as a standalone but the two books together are so incredibly satisfying.

This was the perfect companion to Funny You Should Ask. It’s a funny, sensitive take on grief and love and the mess they both leave behind. Elissa’s open, warmhearted style shines through in every line. And as far as our love interest go — Ben is SWOON CENTRAL and Lauren is all of us, just trying to get through. Their love is inconvenient and inevitable and you’ll be rooting for them!

Thank you to Random House / Ballantine and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thanks to Dell Romance for the ARC of this book! This was my first book by Elissa Sussman and I will absolutely be looking for more in the future! This book follows Lauren, a woman in her early 40s, who lives in the small town of Cooper. Montana. She has been there her entire life. For a long time her love for her husband Spencer kept her there, but she was tragically wid0wed a few years prior. Her brother is a famous movie star, and when she visits him on set with her pre-teen daughter, she meets Ben. He is 10 years her junior and clearly finds her very intriguing. The two strike up an unlikely relationship and though, Lauren really likes him, she doesn't know how to rationalize the love she still has for Spencer, who was the love her life by all accounts, with her attraction to Ben. The book has dual timelines, and it was so cool to see Lauren grow up and fall in love with Spencer as well as her eventual relationship with Ben.

This book included 2 loves stories, a beautiful picture of what it is like to process grief and a journey of self discovery, I really loved this one so much! Five stars!

This is a very deep romance, dealing with many difficult themes (single parenthood, slut shaming, grief, and more).
I wish either or both of the romances had a little more chemistry.. I wanted to root for the characters, but I found myself just being along for the ride.

The message in this story hits close to home with the idea that there are lessons to be learned from the past that will help you in the present and shape your future. I loved Lauren getting to learn who she wants to be and that it's possible to do that later in life.

Lauren seems to have enjoyed living in the shadows, but it's hard when you don't feel seen by the people closest to you. Lauren meets Ben, an actor in her brother's new movie, and Lauren finally feels seen. There are plenty of hurdles that come their way (dating famous people seems really hard in the "normie" world!).

I look forward to reading more of Elissa Sussman!

I unfortunately found myself bored for a lot of this book. Both the past and present story line had such great potential but neither was dug into enough to keep me interested. While the book was not bad by any means, it will not stand out in my mind and I will not remember it in the future. I didn’t feel like I got to know either of the main characters, but I did LOVE Lena! I wouldn’t mind a book about her finding love (or her and Eve’s story).

This book was just a total hit for me. Lauren was so relatable as a mom of a teenager. The constant struggles of what to say and how to say it, how to reach out across the divide that happens at that age. Compound this with the grief they were dealing with and it makes for a lot of room for growth. I loved Lauren’s growth and her reawakening of the stronger version of herself.

I loved Ben and wished we had seen more of him. There was a lot to unpack in his story and he was a very compelling person. I also loved the glimpses into Gabe and Chani’s life after the last book. (Funny You Should Ask - which I also loved!) This was a romance with a lot of heart and family.