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.

This book was so good! It was so emotional and dealt with grief and family implications of grief in a very real way. I found myself crying ALOT. The writing was so good it’s quick and smart and I adore Sussman’s writing for these reasons!!

I feel for Lauren and Lena so much I felt so emotionally connected to the both of them. Both of them are so raw and the grief is reflected so well in them both, I resonated a lot with them.

Ben was fun but I do wish there was MORE of him and MORE of their relationship, I didn’t mind it taking a hit of a back seat to Lauren and her grief and growth but I did want more.

Also was excited to see this was so directly connected to funny you should ask!!

Yes, Sussman does it again! I've read all of her novels and this one doesn't disappoint either! There's something so engaging about the characters she creates that makes the reader care for them so deeply. If you're looking for a romance that packs an emotional punch, look no further than this book. Can't wait to see what Sussman writes next - she will always be an auto-read for me! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I was excited to read this book but I will say it is a mixed bag. While I liked the MMC, Ben, I had a hard time liking our protagonist FMC, Lauren. Age gap (she’s older) trope is not a favorite of mine, but ultimately I had a hard time understanding what made her interesting. She felt very flat even though she was supposed to be dealing with all of these hard things.

As an Pro, we get a peek into Gabe and Chani’s story (Funny You Should Ask).

Wow, I cried SO MUCH reading this. I think the exploration of grief in this book would be poignant for anyone, but hit particularly close to home for me. The main character, Lauren Parker, lost her husband Spencer several years ago, and she and their daughter Lena have been struggling through their grief and pain in different ways for years. There are several points at which Sussman's writing about grief is so relatable to me as someone whose partner had a serious and life-threatening medical emergency in the recent past - I almost couldn't handle it, but it was also so good. I've only read one of Sussman's books before, Funny You Should Ask, and while I definitely liked that, I think the writing was even better in this one. With the structure of the narrative (alternating between "now" and "then"), we see Lauren fall in love and wade through grief more than once, and at the end I felt like I really understood her well as a character. Also, it was great to see Gabe and Chani (from Funny You Should Ask) again - Lauren is Gabe's sister and both Gabe and Chani have important roles in this one. Content warning for death of a parent, death of a spouse, and references to addiction.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

I didn't realize this was a sequel until I looked at reviews after finishing. I wish I had read the first book before I got to this one. This was uneven for me at times. Lauren is grieving her husband when she meets a movie star and there is instant attraction. The book was a lot spicier than I thought it would be so I was just confused about the purpose of the story. I liked the pieces with Lauren's family, her brother and daughter, and how they are coping with grief too. I just didn't feel that I really understood Ben's character quite as well.

This one was a little hard to get going with at first but it did get better. The story really surprised me and it was definitely not what I was expecting. Overall I enjoyed it but I am not sure if I would recommend it.

I liked this. I had to go back and figure out how it fit with her previous book because I kept half remembering pieces that coincided. I did think it was odd Lauren’s mother wasn’t more prominent in the story though.

thank you to netgalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

this was sweet and to clarify, i did enjoy it - but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. first of all, i think the publisher should clarify that this is essentially a sequel to funny you should ask. yes, it focuses on different characters, but there’s a lot of context from funny you should ask that’s important to this story and i don’t think the exposition quite does a good enough job of cluing in readers. i would recommend reading funny you should ask first - and honestly, i think it’s a better book.

i think the problem is that this book tries to do too much. i liked lauren (although tbh i found her and their dirty talk pretty cringe) and i liked her relationship with ben, but i just wasn’t fully invested? there’s not enough time spent with the two of them as a couple because the author is also trying to get you invested in lauren’s relationship with her late husband and the story there - it was far and away the stronger, more impactful relationship, and the relationship with ben just paled in comparison. there are also subplots about sexuality, grief and addiction that aren’t given enough space to breathe.

all that said, again, i did enjoy it! it just wasn’t a perfect romance and missed a few things for me.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: ❤️Romance
Recommend:✅

“Totally and Completely Fine” was such a unique and deep romance that still has so much snark and banter. I really, really enjoyed it from beginning to end.

This one is really two books in one; it focuses around Lauren, a newly widow mother who is (kinda) getting her mojo back. We get both her love story with her husband through flashback chapters and her life now as she falls for her brother’s friend; who also happens to be a major movie star.

I don’t know who I loved more, Spencer, the husband or the new love interest Gabe. This book was heart breaking but so hopeful and fun. It’s an easy recommendation for a quick romance read!

You’ll love this book if you love:
✅Celebrity Stories
✅Life after Grief
✅Snark

Thank you Net Galley and Random House for the ARC!

Elissa Sussman does it again.

I absolutely loved Funny You Should Ask and Once More With Feeling so when I saw another book by Elissa Sussman, I knew I just HAD to read it.

I was hooked from the very beginning with this book. Typically, I'm not one for insta-love, but the chemistry was just undeniable with our main characters. Sussman did a great job of painting the picture of trying to live and love again after such devastating loss. The shorter chapters made navigation from the past and present a breeze and allowed me to absolutely CRUISE through this book.