Beach Read

My 51st read of the year was Beach Read by Emily Henry, I read this when I was having a very bad week and just needed some comforting fluffy romance.

A summary attempt

January winds up temporarily moving into the cabin her father bought to have his affair in, something she only discovers at his funeral. She’s broke, experiencing the worst writers block she’s ever had and questioning everything she ever believed about love and romance. To her dismay she realises she’s moved into a cabin next door to her college rival, Gus, who is also a published writer. Through a series of incidents the two end up around each other enough to realise they are both experiencing crippling writing block, so they decide to set each other the challenge of swapping genres. Gus will have to write a fluffy romance and January will have to write a gritty realism novel. As part of the bet they go on learning expeditions to to teach the other about their genre, January has to come up with romance meet cute scenarios and Gus takes her on research trips into the cult he is writing about. Slowly, they discover that there was more to the other than they thought and well… you know the rest!

What did I think?

I loved this book and, dare I say it, I actually enjoyed it more than a lot of the Ali Hazelwood’s I have read. This just had so much more… depth to it? The characters felt so real and the third act miscommunication felt like how a real genuine misunderstanding would go, instead of it just being two stupid adults not having a fucking conversation. I really liked the backdrop of their writing against the story and how the FMC being a romance writer meant the author could almost break the fourth wall a little bit, by wryly pointing out when she found herself in the same ridiculous situations as the MC’s in romance books.

I will definitely be on the hunt for some more Emily Henry novels after reading this!

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