Welcome to the Short N’ Sweet Book Review! For the ten years that I’ve been reviewing books on this blog, I’ve written long, wordy reviews that, let’s be honest, not a lot of people are probably reading. Recently, I decided to shorten those reviews and get straight to the point – what is this book about, who wrote it, where you can find and a short review on what I loved, liked and maybe thought could be better.
Today’s review is an emotional and adventurous friends-to-lovers novel, People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry!
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ABOUT THE BOOK
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?
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Genre: Romance
Pages: 364
Part of a Series?: Standalone Novel
Release Date: May 11th, 2021
Publisher: Berkley Books
Source: Library Ebook
Find the Author: Website / Instagram / GoodReads
FIND THE BOOK:
GoodReads / BookShop (support your local indie!) / IndieBound / Barnes and Noble / Amazon / Audible / Book Depository / Apple Books / Kobo / Google Play
SHORT N’SWEET REVIEW
I have always been a huge fan of a friends to lovers romance. In fact, it might actually be my favorite trope in romance, or, really, any genre and, sure, I might be a little biased because my husband and I were best friends for nearly seven years before we started dating but…no, yeah, well I’m biased haha.
Now if you’ve read my book reviews in the past, you know that I am a big fan of second chances. While I absolutely LOVED the YA Thelma and Louise-esque novel, Hello Girls, that Emily wrote with Brittany Cavallero, I will be completely honest in saying that I wasn’t a fan of Beach Read. I’m not sure if I had different expectations on what the book would be like, the tone and such, based on the cover and the title or if it had just been built up so much, but I just simply did not enjoy it. Because of that, I was super hesitant to read People We Meet on Vacation.
However, I really do like Emily – I think she’s talented and I follow her on instagram and I was looking for a new romance to read so I gave it a chance and I’m SO glad I did. Perhaps its because its a trope that I really love but I loved the story from beginning to end and I absolutely ADORE Poppy and Alex.
What I think really makes a friends to lovers story so believable is the longevity of it – watching two friends fall in love slowly over time, maybe not even realizing because they’ve been friends for so long. Friendship love that turns into romantic love takes time and I like to see that. Unfortunately, I think that can make for a boring book sometimes but this book isn’t like that and I think you can credit that to the fact that Emily does a greet job at illustrating what is so wonderful and genuine and real about Poppy and Alex’s friendship over time, as they travel together each year, in the past, while also building up their relationship and their feelings for each other in the present. It’s a beautiful balance and its easy to fall in love along side them because of this back and forth. I think Emily takes something that could be so tedious, long and boring and makes it fun and emotional and page-turning.
I also just love the idea of friends falling in love. You know everything there is to know about that person, the kind of things that you only tell a friend, the kind of things you’d rather keep a secret from a potential partner. Because that person knows you the best, good and bad, and they are the best one to fall in love with. I know it from experience and so reading Alex and Poppy grow closer and closer, transcending just the simple best friend relationship and moving to something deeper and more emotional was so fun to read but also so familiar as well and I think that’s a huge part in why I loved it.
I also think the travel of it also helps in making it so fun and exciting. The trips that Poppy and Alex take together each other are so pivotal to their friendship and eventual relationship. Not only is this where they spend time together, discover each other, have adventures with each other, but they mark the passing of time, the important moments in their life and so on. I love to travel and sadly have done very little of it and this makes me want to travel more and more and discover all those things off the beaten path and to do it with my favorite person, my best friend aka my husband. I think going on adventures and traveling creates a lot of adrenaline and emotion and I think it was the perfect way to have the two main characters fall in love with each other.
This review was not nearly as short as I meant it to be LOL but I really truly did love this book. I’m so glad, as I usually am, that I believe in second chances. I feel like I would miss out on truly great books if I didn’t give authors second chances, simply because I didn’t enjoy another book. This book was so good and I was hooked from page one to the last and I’m excited to read more from Emily Henry in the future. I’m waiting to get my hands on her newest YA from the library and I’m even MORE excited now to read it!
RATING:
4 out of 5 Stars
