I found the romance in this one to be a little forced and unbelievable. I think the characters needed more moments to build upon that relationship.

The origin story and brothers story with addiction felt like it was missing some key moments.

Overall enjoyed the writing and the characters, mainly the relationship the daughter had with her mother and uncle in the aftermath of her father’s death. It just felt like overall, the story it could be built upon.

If you're in the mood for a heartfelt romance that spans two timelines, Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman is a great pick. The story follows Lauren, a widowed single mom, who connects with actor Ben Walsh on the set of her brother’s film. Lauren's journey isn't just about romance- it's also about rediscovering herself.

If you enjoy romances that are celebrity-adjacent, this is the book for you! It also features a throwback to Gabe and Chani from Funny You Should Ask, but it’s not necessary for you to have read that book first. As always, Sussman delivers a book that’s both deeply romantic and also manages to ponder some of life’s biggest questions, too.

3⭐️
Totally and Completely Fine was a follow up to Funny You Should Ask that isn’t being advertised as a companion novel at all as far as I can tell. The further we got into the book the less I cared about present tense Lauren and Ben and the more I craved the flash back scenes with Lauren and Spencer. I didn’t get an emotional connection between Ben and Lauren and by the end of the book, our HEA didn’t feel earned at all.

Though the nods to the plot and characters in Funny You Should Ask were exciting, I sometimes felt there were too many and it distracted from the main story.

Overall, the story seemed a little messy and some of the characters one dimensional. Not the worst romance I’ve ever read but not the best either.

Thanks NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an advanced copy of this book!

*I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*

I LOVED it! I have read three books now by Elissa Sussman and have loved them all. She is one of my favorite authors and us up there in my mind similar to Emily Henry and Abby Jimenz.

Elissa Sussman has crafted a book that feels both distinct and reminiscent of her other titles. The book is filled with heartfelt moments between Lauren and her family and friends that are really what makes the story memorable. I was particularly drawn to Lauren’s growth throughout the book as she navigates the challenges of grief. It was so great observing Gabe and Chani from the sidelines of the narrative, and Lauren’s insights into their family dynamics grew both her story and Gabe’s as well.

Elissa Sussman’s writing has consistently impressed me and drawn me in. I cannot wait to see what she will be writing next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House publishing group for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Dell and Netgalley for this e-arc!!!

WOW Elissa Sussman…. thank you for this book. Waiting an extra year to read it was so worth it. I don’t even want to write a one liner but here goes: With dual timelines, a widowed mother meets an up and coming Hollywood star and sparks fly to the background of grief, familial healing, and a lot of love.

Anyway, I hate to mash it down to bits because every part of this messy, real, and raw story deserves its spotlight!!! I absolutely ate up this book. I think it’s Sussman’s best work yet and I loved every facet of it.

You guys know I’m a complete sucker for a grief plot line and Totally and Completely fine had many!!!! Meanwhile the love story had me kicking my feet and GRINNING and the family trauma and growth had me SOBBING!!! Ben, our MMC, is everything to me btw!

I laughed, I cried, I blushed… what more do you want when reading a romance?! This book is full of depth and characters you want to squeeze and root for. Ugh, I just loved this one so much.

Dead mommy club stamp of approval. Five juicy stars. Loved - pick this one up July 8 or else!!!

📚 Totally and Completely Fine
✍ Elissa Sussman
📖 Women's Fiction/ Romance
⭐4/5
🌶️ 🌶️
📆 Out 7/8/2025

🙏 Thank you to Ballantine Books, Dell Romance, NetGalley and the author for an advanced digital copy of Totally and Completely Fine. All opinions are my own.
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🎯 What I loved: I'm not sure that I've ever read a romance before that was dual timeline where one timeline was the main character's life with one man and one was another which gave this book a unique feel. In the author's note at the end, it's clear that Sussman drew some of the issues that the characters were grappling with in this book from her own life and that really translated to the page. This is a surprisingly emotional read and it didn't really hit me until the last 5% of the book but then it just....struck me what the characters in this book were going through and how raw that left them. I do recommend reading Sussman's adult debut Funny You Should Ask before this book because the timelines crisscross and the main characters from that book play major roles in this storyline.

🙅‍♀️ What I didn't: The timelines with two different men was really interesting and while I think it was necessary to include a lot of Spencer to better illustrate Lauren's grief journey, it made it really hard to get invested in her connection with Ben. I also struggled to connect with aspects of Lauren's character- her lack of ambition seemed wildly different from Sussman's previous FMCs and she was honestly so mean to Ben during a lot of the book- I know she was going through a lot and was working to protect her heart but her cruelty was cringey. And, I missed the Jewish representation that Sussman did so well in her previous books (although there was a fun scene with Chani) but found the more conservative Christian representation interesting.
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Read if you love:
*love after loss
*single parent romance
*brother's friend (x2)
*celebrity romance without any celebrity drama (no paparazzi)
*small-town settings
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See also: Nora Goes Off Script, In Another Life, How to Fake it in Hollywoood

I always say reading a book is like getting a warm hug. Well this time I'd like to give the characters a hug.
I don't know how Elissa does it but she makes it so easy to connect with her characters and live through them.

Release date: July 8, 2025

This was such an enjoyable read - I absolutely loved 'Funny You Should Ask' and was SO excited to get an arc of this one! Sussman writes about grief so beautifully and I could not put this book down.

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