People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry // Book Review

Holy cow, am I going to be calling my challenge off early because I’ve finally read my favorite Emily Henry book?

Here’s more about People We Meet on Vacation

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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Anyway, the first Emily Henry book I’m reading in my summer reading challenge and it’s already going so great. I feel like I never hear much about People We Meet on Vacation, but it seems to be the silent sleeper in Emily Henry’s collection.

The story follows Poppy and Alex who couldn’t be more opposite with each other than possibly can. Poppy comes from a free-spirited home while Alex’s is a bit more laced up. Poppy’s education was a little unconventional while Alex has gone to more school than most doctors. And while they are pretty much complete opposites, they find themselves on a road trip back home together launching a friendship that includes frequent vacations to faraway places every summer.

One of the first things that came out of my mouth when I read this book was “wow, this story reminds me a lot of When Harry Met Sally…” and the story does carry that idea of two friends who’ve known each other for a very long time, seen each other at their worst and their best, dated their worst and their best, and only to realize very too long in their friendship that they had feelings for each other. It’s definitely my kind of slow-burning friends-to-lovers romance!

Of course, Emily Henry also has the uncanny ability to really tap into the emotional and mental states of her characters. And like most of the books I read by Emily Henry, I felt a certain resonates with Poppy’s need to escape the small town she grew up in and explore what the rest of the world has to offer is a feeling I know all too well stemming from an early traveling experience that I haven’t forgotten for 25 years. And then that need to always be free stemming back to her inability to commit in relationships just shook me to my core. Honestly, Emily Henry, how does she know me so well?

The romance was subtle and sweet and the perfect amount of heat for me. If you’ve been reading my reviews for a while, then you know that I’m not a huge fan of the big old spicy books, but I can’t help but to get giddy when the couple finally address the big purple elephant in the room. So I had such a blast reading this one. It’s the perfect summer vacation read with low stakes romance and very big friendship energy. Already the top of my favorite Emily Henry book of all time!