Title: People We Meet On Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Tropes/Themes: Friends to Lovers, Traveling, Second chance, Slow burn, Mutual pining
Edition/Pages: Hardcover (BOTM), 364 Pages
Goodreads page

Synopsis

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Newsweek ∙ Oprah Magazine ∙ Marie Claire ∙ Parade ∙ PopSugar ∙ BookPage ∙ BookBub ∙ Betches ∙ SheReads ∙ Good Housekeeping ∙ BuzzFeed ∙ and more!

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

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. 

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?

Review

Thank you SO much to Berkley Romance and Netgalley for sending me an e-arc copy in exchange for an honest review

Do you ever read a book and feel like it’s your perfect book? Like somehow the author reached inside you and pulled the story from somewhere in a dark corner of your heart? That’s this book for me. Every word of this book gave me butterflies, made me laugh out loud, or left me feeling wholly seen and understood. 

There are 5 star reads – of which I’ve read plenty this year – and then there are books like that this that stamp themselves on your heart forever.

Emily Henry has officially solidified herself and my favorite rom-com author of all time. This book not only made my heart flutter, but laugh out loud more times than I can count.

These characters were deeply flawed. But I’ve never related so viscerally to characters before – I felt completely cracked open while reading this. These characters really embody what it feels like to be a millennial and a little lost in your 30s. And I loved that exploration. 

This is friend to lovers perfection and I’m pretty sure this book has ruined me for this trope forever – nothing else will ever compare.

I loved that the relationship is messy and far from perfect – and the way the main characters hurt others in the cross-fire is definitely addressed. But no matter their faults, I fell head over heels for these characters. Their chemistry charged off the page, and the slow burn had me panting by the time they confessed their feelings. 

But on top of all that, simply the way this book was structured was perfection. This played with timelines in the most wonderful and impactful way. Between the present day chapters, you’re moving through time as the characters meet and travel together. Each of the past chapters follows a pervious trip they main characters took – allowing you to fall in love with the characters as they fall in love with each other.

All in all this book was everything to me. I won’t soon forget this story and it’s definitely one I’ll return to again and again.

Author photo to Devyn Glista St. Blanc Studios

Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.