People We Meet On Vacation,

by Emily Henry

Publication: Berkley Publishing; May 11, 2021

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

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read comes 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?

My Review

Well, this one has been on my NetGalley TBR list for a long time and I am totally ashamed that I am posting a review two months after publication! But here’s the thing – although I loved this book in many ways, this one was a challenge in become invested in the story. Poppy and Alex have been best friends since they started college and just so happened to have grown up in the same small town in Ohio (although different schools). As a travel blogger and then a travelling journalist with R & R Magazine later, they have always taken summer trips together until something happened between them a few years back. When Poppy finds herself in a rut, she takes a chance and reconnects with Alex asking him to do a summer trip together, once again, and he accepts.

Let me start with what I loved about this novel. First of all, I am a huge fan of friends-to-lovers romances because really, what makes for a better romance than that foundation of friendship! Secondly, Poppy was absolutely hilarious and made me laugh out loud at times. Her friend Rachel had some good one-liners every once in awhile, but Poppy was like my ideal friend. She was smart, humble, but absolutely hilarious. Lastly, besides the ease between Poppy and Alex I was blown away by the love that each of them felt for one another, even when reluctant to admit it.

So here was my main problem with the book – the flashbacks! I am guessing that the author did the flashbacks of their previous summer trips in order to develop them as single characters and to develop their relationship. But guess what? Those chapters were so boring I could have cried. I think I actually read about 2 of the flashback chapters and then either skimmed them or skipped through them entirely. I am not an author but I read atleast one book a day and I can say with no doubt that those chapters were not necessary. I already knew how close they had been and that there were underlying feelings between them, therefore, there was no need for endless chapters about every little thing they did on vacation each year.

I think I would recommend this novel for young adult fans who enjoy a lot of conversation without a lot of commitment. Diehard romance fans will be disappointed by all of the uncessary dialogue and filler chapters. Anyone who enjoyed Sally Rooney’s Conversation With Friends will probably appreciate this novel, but I think more mature adults will get bored with this quickly.

Although I’m torn between what I loved and hated, I give this 3 stars.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.