People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

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People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Genre: Women’s Fiction | 384 Pages | Published: May 11, 2021 by Berkley

Book Jacket Synopsis:

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.

Book Links: Amazon

Review & Thoughts

I read and loved Emily Henry’s novel Beach Read and was excited to read her new book People We Meet on Vacation. I’m sorry to say this story fell a bit flat for me compared to her first book. Overall it was a somewhat enjoyable read but it just didn’t hit home for me. I didn’t enjoy the non-linear timeline format. It added to the build-up of the growth of the relationship but it’s my least favorite format and I thought it didn’t really add much to the story.

Despite my lack of love for the format I did enjoy some of the characters and the locations. I enjoyed Alex’s character. I saw someone post on Goodreads that they don’t normally have book crushes but they did on Alex and I can see their point. He’s so sweet and charming and such a good friend to her. I thought it was interesting that they never really pursued taking their friendship further in their decade long friendship prior to the events of the book.

I enjoyed the travel aspect of the story and would recommend this to those looking for a wanderlust-inspired book to take you on a mental vacation or to find inspiration for your future travel plans.

My Review Rating: ♥♥♥.5 | Recommend for: fans of Emily Henry (duh!), fans of non-linear timeline romance, fans of friends to lovers romance trope.

Book Format & Source: Hardback purchased from BOTM. Digital ARC gifted from publisher via NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this book from Berkley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Any ARC editing errors noticed are assumed corrected prior to the final published copy release.

About Emily Henry

Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the now-defunct New York Center for Art & Media Studies. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.