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Do you ever resist reading a book because everyone is talking about it, or wonder if it’s really that good?  Sometimes we do.  Today’s titles live up to the hype, for us, and hopefully, so will From Blood and Ash #1 by Jennifer Armentrout.  If you’d like to find out, join us in reading and then sign on to the next Virtual Book Club discussion on Friday, August 26 at 7:30pm CST.  Whether it does or doesn’t live up to the hype, the conversation should be entertaining, and we’d love for you to sign up here to weigh in on this title!

As of this writing, I have a bit of a struggle with whoever titles Emily Henry’s books, but there is hope.  If I’m reading Beach Read, I want an ocean beach, not a lake, because those vibes are very different.  And when I read People We Meet on Vacation, knowing it’s a romance, I want the romance to be between… people who meet on vacation.  And, while writing this, I just learned the international title is You and Me on Vacation which is PERFECT!  UGH.  Thankfully, Book Lovers includes not two, but three main characters who love books!  All that aside, I really enjoyed all the above titles, especially the latter two.  People We Meet on Vacation is a friends to lovers romance novel that is witty, real, vulnerable, snarky, and deep.  Henry even seems to have just the right amount of “hold my beer” energy (my words, not hers) when she’s putting these characters through the ringer.  (I’m not spoiling the issue that pulls them apart and necessitates the grand gesture because it’s their vacation that’s my favorite train wreck as so many things go wrong.)  Amidst that, these two were best friends and then didn’t talk for two years, for some reason that is ever. so. slowly revealed, then reconnect to have a trip full of memories, both new and old, and it’s really fun to tag along for on their current, over the top travels.  

The structure is probably my favorite part of People We Meet on Vacation which feels geeky and I don’t care.  We start out in the “present day” Poppy is struggling to be herself, because she doesn’t know what makes her happy, except for traveling with Alex, and she hasn’t talked to him in two years.  They end up texting and then going on a trip, like they used to, Poppy hopes, to reconnect and rekindle their friendship.  While we’re experiencing this with Poppy, every other chapter or so, we travel back in time, first to ten years ago when Poppy and Alex first meet, gradually learning about their friendship, lives, and travels over the last twelve years, until we get to the last time they saw each other, near the end of this book, and learned what happened right before those two silent years.  I have been on record stating I’ve struggled with this sort of structure before (*cough* All the Light We Cannot See), but I think the difference is it’s really clearly labeled here.  We have “this summer” and “twelve years ago” style headings for each chapter and I’m so here for it because the reader clearly knows where they are in Poppy and Alex’s progression throughout. 

Reader, please do note, these are not your light beach read.  All these books include characters who are dimensional and deep, and have complex issues to overcome, and that’s all before the romance comes into play.  You may just get dragged into your feelings with them and end up crying, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but did leave me needing something very different before moving into book two of this double feature, and delighted to have a historical mystery to read afterwords.  

For the second act, Book Lovers, we may be about to have a bit of a squabble.  Ashley finished before I started (see aforementioned required pause in between) and said I could write about the first book but she wanted to write about the second.  I told her she could write about the second, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to…and it still doesn’t because here I go.  I loved the deep dive into what a book agent does (and how they get paid) versus what an editor does.  I love the city slickers who spend a month in a tiny country town outside Asheville living their best Hallmarkish-movie-life (and would actually LOVE to do the same).  I love the snark and the dimensional personalities of the main and supporting characters, including Sunshine Falls itself.  I love the pseudo enemies to lovers romance, and y’all, how I love Nina’s relationship with her sister.  Here’s the sort of spoiler, this isn’t just about a romance, it’s also about Nina’s relationship with her younger sister and how that has developed throughout their lives.  We get their family history in flashbacks so that we understand the background that’s gotten these two fabulous women to the “present” day.  Henry writes single POV stories, and that allows her to gorgeously craft a fantastic romance but also a stunning story of sisters.  I want to say more, but y’all, if you want a Hallmarkish movie on the page with amped up real life, snark, and spice (yes, a couple of open door scenes), I think Book Lovers would be a great fit (however, if you want to read all three of Henry’s latest books, I’d read in publication order because each feels better than the last, and they’re all so fun)!  

I have now read Henry’s last three releases (the only three included on her book listing page in each of the books mentioned so far), and the YA novel A Million Junes and I’m giving Emily Henry a season pass.  That’s right, I’m here for whatever she’s writing.  My beloved Kendra Adachi also gave Henry a season pass in this episode with her delightful sister Hannah, wherein she said that she liked People We Meet on Vacation and LOVED Book Lovers.  I agree, and I’m giving them 4 and 5 stars, respectively.  If you still are on the fence and need a dose of Henry herself, with some support from Anne Bogel, please listen to them on this Modern Mrs. Darcy episode, which was so fun! 

~Nikki

Sometimes I don’t know what my job is here on the blog because Nikki goes in and takes so much of my fun research stuff and throws it in her part of the blog post… But, I’m not complaining, I’m just still in an emotional upheaval because of Book Lovers. Before I can get into those details, however, we do need to discuss Ms. Emily Henry. She’s the author of three bestselling romance novels: Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation, and Book Lovers. She is also the author of four young adult books: The Love That Split the World, A Million Junes, When the Sky Fell on Splendor, and Hello Girls with Brittany Cavallaro. That’s seven books published since her debut in 2016, which was only four years after her graduation from Hope College in Holland, Michigan. (Maybe we know why she chose a Michigan town as the setting for Beach Read?) She lives and writes in Cincinnati and the part of Kentucky south of the Ohio River. 

Now, a few things about People We Meet on Vacation. The book is of course written from Poppy’s point of view, and when we meet her she is a successful magazine travel writer living in New York City with a great apartment, the perfect job, and a best friend who is a social media influencer. Poppy and Rachel discuss Poppy’s struggles at work and in life, which Rachel calls “Millennial ennui” because Poppy has accomplished all the goals that she set for herself. A big part of Poppy curating the current trip with Alex is because those were the times in her life where she felt the most joy. During one of the flashback chapters we learn an important private joke between Alex and her, which is the phrase “this speaks to me.” Poppy is trying to experience and create moments in her life which ‘speak to her’ or, in that Marie Kondo way, finding the things which bring her joy. And that’s what makes her situation so relatable to me, she’s just trying to find her joy.

Book Lovers, however, had me texting Nikki when I was at about 70% because I was literally crying. Did I have something else I needed to be doing instead of finishing reading that book? Yes I did. Did I give any shits? No I did not. I just kept reading and crying and reading and crying until I hit the 100% mark. I can’t even tell you the specific reason why I was crying because that would spoil so much of the later part of the book, but it wasn’t about the romantic relationship in this novel, it was about the sisterly one. I definitely texted my own younger sister, told her I loved her, and that a book made me boo hoo cry tears. She was amazed because I am not a weeper. But, I cry every time I watch Lilo and Stitch when Nani finds out that Lilo has been taken into a spaceship by aliens and she will probably never see her little sister again, so, perhaps this isn’t as big a stretch for me as my sister thinks it is…

My favorite part of the entire book is that the premise of Nina’s character is that she is the big-city career woman whose boyfriend experiences the small-town love story. 

“The kind where a cynical hotshot from New York or Los Angeles gets shipped off to Smalltown, USA- to, like, run a family-owned Christmas tree farm out of business to make room for a soulless corporation. But while said City Person is in town, things don’t go to plan. Because, of course, the Christmas tree farm–or bakery, or whatever the hero’s been sent to destroy – is owned and operated by someone ridiculously attractive and suitably available for wooing. Back in the city, the lead has a romantic partner. Someone ruthless who encourages him to do what he’s set out to do and ruin some lives in exchange for that big promotion. […]You can tell she’s evil because her hair is an unnatural blonde […] and also, she hates Christmas decorations. As the hero spends more time with the charming baker/seamstress/tree farm…person, things change for him. He learns the true meaning of life! He returns home, transformed by the love of a good woman. There he asks his ice-queen girlfriend to take a walk with him. […] And then he realizes: he can’t go back to his old life. He doesn’t want to! He ends his cold, unsatisfying relationship and proposes to his new sweetheart.” 

How would it feel to be repeatedly told by the men you’re dating that the life you love, the life you’ve worked so hard to achieve is not the life he wants to have any longer? That he wants something and someone fundamentally different from who and what you are. These are the romantic struggles that Nina is facing when her sister whisks her away to Sunshine Falls, NC, AKA Smalltown, USA, for a month of attempting to create Nina’s own Hallmark Happy Ending. Nina, like Poppy, and like January in Beach Read, is a woman struggling to find her joy. Yes, these are all romance novels, and so YES each of these women find their Happily Ever After, but I think the biggest part is that they come to realize something fundamental about life, and that only they can make themselves truly happy and having a partner is the icing on the cake. 

And so, darling readers, just like for Nikki, Emily Henry has become a season pass author. Five Stars for Book Lovers, and Four Stars for People We Meet on Vacation, with last year’s June Virtual Book Club pick of Beach Read also pulling in a Four Star Review, that’s solid proof that Henry is an author I’ll come back to again and again. Plus, if she can get me to cry real tears, she’s got to be good at what she does.

As a super fun bonus, check out this bonus content on her website…look who you can run into while stranded in an airport, if you’ve read Beach Read. 😉

~Ashley

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