Title: You and Me on Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
ISBN: 9780241992234
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK
Pages: 368
Source: Private copy.
Two friends. Ten trips. Their last chance to fall in love…
*Also known as People We Meet On Vacation*
12 YEARS AGO: Poppy and Alex meet. They hate each other and are pretty confident they’ll never speak again.
11 YEARS AGO: They’re forced to share a ride home from college and by the end of it a friendship is formed. And a pact: every year, one vacation together.
10 YEARS AGO: Alex discovers his fear of flying on the way to Vancouver.
Poppy holds his hand the whole way.
7 YEARS AGO: They get far too drunk and narrowly avoid getting matching tattoos in New Orleans.
2 YEARS AGO: It all goes wrong.
THIS YEAR: Poppy asks Alex to join her on one last trip. A trip that will determine the rest of their lives.
Official Summary
01 September 2022
So… I think I might have an unpopular opinion when it comes to this book. Everything I read about this book before reading was how amazing it was and what an amazing author Emily Henry was. And sadly, after reading the book I felt that it was just okay.
Don’t get me wrong, Emily Henry is a good writer and I will not judge her writing as a whole based on this one book. I have every intention of giving her another chance. However, I found this book to be very average. It didn’t have me as hooked as everyone said I would be. Then again, there is a chance I built it up in my head and set the standard too high. It also didn’t help that I was in a bit of a reading slump.
I think there were just too many tropes that I am not that fond of. Like the one-bed trope. However, I think my biggest problem with the book was that most of the scenes felt fuller, suspense until we find out what happened two summers ago. I also didn’t enjoy the main conflict, there was so much build-up to it that once I got it, it was very much anti-climactic.
The one thing I truly did love about this book is the two main characters. Alex and Poppy. They were beautifully written characters. I liked how much Alex grew over the years and how he opened up to Poppy more and more. I also loved Poppy. I think she was my favourite character in the whole book. I like how she was just herself trough out the book and how she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. I would kill to have her confidence.
Overall I look forward to giving Emily Henry another chance. As I think it was me and not the book. I would recommend this book if you are looking for beautifully written and relatable characters.
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, my little book nerds…
I still need to read this one! It’s the only Emily Henry book I haven’t read yet
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