Rating: 96% | A | ★★★★★ Synopsis (from Goodreads): Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love. 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? Spoiler-Free Review Emily Henry can do no wrong. Like Beach Read, which I reviewed last month, People We Meet on Vacation completely stunned me. It's brilliant—so cleverly funny it'll split you open with side stitches—and heartfelt and beautiful. Poppy is a fantastic, lively protagonist and Alex balances her out so perfectly. Henry's writing style also hits directly at the reader's heart; I tend to think of her as on the same coin as Sally Rooney, but on the opposite side. They both discuss millennial ennui, but while Rooney is coolly indifferent, Henry is cautiously, gently optimistic. The novel's strength comes primarily from the sincerity of the love between the two main characters. Many online reviewers have said that People We Meet on Vacation made them believe in love; the novel certainly, ardently defends it. Poppy and Alex's love story is a fresh breath of air in the hazy fog of modern life. The plot starts out a little slow, and I have mixed feelings about the ending, but People We Meet on Vacation is a must-read not only for contemporary romance fans but also for all readers. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.) Plot (28/30) Beginning (9/10), Middle (10/10), and End (9/10) The novel starts out slowly. Opening chapters in media res are almost always confusing, and unfortunately, this is no exception. But after Poppy updates the reader on her life in New York after a mysterious falling-out with Alex, the story picks up steam. I couldn't stop laughing at this particular passage: 'Poppy was playing Mike Wazowski,' Alex adds dryly, upping the ante. (It's worth it to read People We Meet on Vacation just for this scene.) I don't usually enjoy parallel plot lines—I find that they often distort the main focus of the story in favor of lesser, extraneous details—but I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. The reader can see precisely how and when Alex and Poppy fall in love in their first friendship, and how and when they fall in love after reuniting. The parallelism reinforces the idea that both Poppy and Alex have been waiting a long time for each other. And, of course, whenever they break apart, Henry writes heartbreaking lines like these: We don't so much as brush against each other until we hug goodbye. We never speak about what happened again. Poppy and Alex are so wonderful together when they finally, finally confess their feelings for each other. Beyond the smug, I-knew-it-all-along reader reaction, there's also genuine happiness for them. From Alex flying to New York to take care of Poppy to Poppy bringing Alex out of his shell, they have loved each other all along. Everything they do is for each other—even when their actions unintentionally sabotage their relationship. I have some minute qualms with the ending. While I think Poppy's great confession is absolutely necessary—out of respect to the romance genre!—there's a rough, off-kilter feeling to Alex moving to New York with her afterwards. Linfield hangs over the story like an unwavering specter, and to read about Alex giving it up so easily (although he and Poppy plan to return every summer) was unsettling. However, I'm sure I would feel the same way had Poppy moved back to Linfield after all the success she attained in New York. It's a lose-lose situation for me, as an individual reader; I keep wishing for an ending that simply doesn't feel feasible. Characters (30/30) Development (15/15) and Lure (15/15) Poppy and Alex are perfectly developed. They are hilarious without being artificial and vulnerable without being saccharine. They feel keenly, just as real humans do. The development of Emily Henry's characters is what propels me to compare Henry to Sally Rooney. I found myself thinking of Normal People while reading both Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation; the only times in which I've felt so connected to the characters while reading was while I was reading these three books. Writing (20/20) Descriptions (10/10) and Flow (10/10) I'm running out of ways to say "Emily Henry's writing is perfect," so let's just leave it at that. Her prose is beautiful, clear, and endlessly emotional. There are innumerable quotes I could pull from the novel to showcase her talent, but it's difficult choosing which ones. They're all brilliant. Closure/Set-Up (18/20) Logic (8/10) and Lure/Closure (10/10) Again, I'm not completely sold on Alex moving to New York. The final chapter, however, always hits me hard whenever I reread People We Meet on Vacation (which I've done about five hundred times since finishing it for the first time). It's a beautiful ending to a beautiful book, and I have to agree with other reviewers: it makes me believe in love. I didn't know regular life could feel like this, like a vacation you don't have to go home from.
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ReviewsThe Ice Swan
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