Title: Happy Place
Author: Emily Henry
ISBN: 9780241997932
Publisher: Penguin UK
Pages: 388
Source: Johnathan Ball Publishers
A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends.
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?
Official Summary
06 June 2023
This book follows Harriet as she goes on a holiday with her friend group. However, she is on this holiday trip with her ex-fiancé, Wyn. However, no one in the friend group knows they are broken up and they are forced to pretend to still be together for their friend’s sake. There are flashbacks from the present, where they are on holiday and key moments in Harriet and Wyn’s relationship from the last ten years.
This book has such fun summery vibes. Harriet is batting to juggle her friendships, relationships and just what she wants out of life in general.
I have to say, I flew through this book. It was surprisingly a super-fast read. It is just typical that I will read the perfect summer read just as we are heading into winter.
I loved Harriet’s character. She was very relatable. There were times when I wanted her to be more confrontational, especially with Wyn but I get that it wasn’t in her character to do that.
I liked Wyn’s character as well. I loved how he wasn’t your typical big brooding male lead. I liked that he was emotional and that his character was more human and realistic. Something that seriously bugged me about Wyn’s character is that he did not once try to fight for Harriet. She was always the one who had to put the effort in to get them back together, and yes I get that he had his issues but his issues don’t make him incapable of having a conversation with her.
I would just like to make a general warning, this book has the trope, of misunderstandings and miscommunication. So if you don’t like that like I know a lot of people don’t. That troupe is the only reason, this book was a four-star and not a five.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun quick read.
Also by Emily Henry
Beach Read
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They’re polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
About The Author
Author Bio from the Author’s Site
Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of People We Meet on Vacation and Beach Read, as well as several young adult novels. She lives and writes in Cincinnati and the part of Kentucky just beneath it.
Her books have been featured in Buzzfeed, Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, The Skimm, Shondaland, and more
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think in the comments below.
Goodbye…….
