Antonia Bernardin

Some of the other review compilations I’ve done seem to be getting a lot of visitors, which lead me to thinking they are quite helpful? So I thought I’d do another one for an author I’ve read a few of: Emily Henry.

I’ll admit, currently, I haven’t read her latest book but I will be soon, so I will update when I have!

Beach Read

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.

Book Lovers

A summary attempt

Nora is the anti-heroine of every romance book, she is the high powered city girl in fancy shoes who the male love interest leaves for the girl from the charming small town he goes to visit and ends up staying forever. In fact, this has happened to her, three times. Ahead of the birth of her sisters third child, Nora is convinced by her baby sister to take a vacation in the small town featured in one of the author’s Nora represents novels. Libby has a check list of small town romance novels things they must do while on holiday, including setting her sister up with a rugged local man. When they arrive, Nora finds that the only place with good wifi happens to be the bookstore, where she discovers one of her nemesis’s from the literary world is working to help out his family while his dad is sick. Libby is charmed by small town life but Nora can’t wait to leave, she senses her sister is hiding something as they make their way through the checklist, meanwhile, Nora finds herself drawn to the equally cut-throat, equally city loving and literary rival, Charlie.

My thoughts

This was such an enjoyable read and one of the things I loved most about it is that she is still a career-orientated, child free by choice, city dweller at the end. Her character development is all about moving on from her mother’s death and her relationship with the baby sister she helped raise changing and growing. I loved all the ways this book breaks the fourth wall about traditional tropes in the romance genre to show a romance with the kind of woman we don’t usually see in these novels.

You and me on vacation

A summary attempt

12 summers, 10 vacations. Best friends Alex and Poppy are an unlikely duo who formed an unbreakable friendship, which seemed to stand the test of time. Until two years ago on their last vacation, where a falling out caused them not to speak for two years. Poppy finds herself feeling lost, even though she did it: she achieved her dream career, in her dream city, in her dream apartment. So in attempt to find what is missing, Poppy retraces her steps to the last time she was truly happy, which was the yearly summer trips with Alex before things got messy and complicated. So she decides to go out a limb and invite Alex on another summer trip, surprisingly, Alex agrees but they have to tie it into his trip to Palm Springs for his brother’s wedding. She hopes one last trip will fix everything but will it be enough to fix the cracks caused by two year’s distance and a decade’s history?

My thoughts?

I really loved these characters and all Poppy’s talk about being a travel writer really made me nostalgic for my travelling days, so some of the personal journey arc she goes on in the book felt really close to my own heart. I’m not the biggest fan of the ‘best friend’s to lovers’ trope but it did work surprisingly well in this book.

Happy Place

The 33rd book I read this year was Happy Place by Emily Henry. I read this during my absolute nightmare flight on my way to go on holiday, so it definitely helped remind me to think of my happy place whilst trapped on a plane for 5.5 hours.

A summary attempt

Harriet met her two best friends in college and from there their little group grew to include their flatmates, who later became their boyfriends and one of the girl’s girlfriend. Every year they take a summer trip to one of the girl’s lakeside cabin’s, as times have changed this trip has started to become the only time they all get together and it is Harriet’s happy place. Except this year things are different, because Harriet and Wyn are about to ruin the group dynamic by announcing their breakup. Harriet, who is barely surviving her residency, asked him to hold off on telling their friends and to tell let her join the yearly trip alone and tell them then. Except when she arrives it’s to be ambushed by Wyn and an announcement: her friend’s dad is selling the lake house and her friend plans to get married with just the 6 of them to witness, to give the house one big farewell.

Not wanting to ruin her friend’s big week, Harriet swears Wyn to secrecy for one more week but this means they’ll be sharing a room and playing the part of a happy couple. All the secrets Harriet is keeping threaten to crush her as she tries to smile through the week, her happy place failing to have its usual affect on her. She still doesn’t know why Wyn broke up with her, something is going on with her other friend and she’s coming to the crushing realisation that medicine might not be the right path for her. Everything is changing.

What did I think?

Firstly, as a millennial whose friends are hitting 30 and are starting to transition away from the way our relationships worked and what we considered fun in our 20’s, this book felt very real. This book was full of heartache, loneliness and the bleak realities of being utterly skint despite having good qualifications and good jobs, which I think captures the millennial spirit quite well too. I also think it was a well done second chance style romance, except it was just life changing and its challenges that pushed them apart. I also appreciated how shit was resolved by them just having a fucking honest conversation, which is my main bug bear with romance books, as they rely too heavily on the miscommunication trope a lot of the time.

My thoughts on all books combined

I didn’t enjoy You and me on vacations, as much as Beach Read or Book Lovers but I still think this is a good read. I think my favourite overall is Book Lovers, just because there were so many elements in there that you don’t usually get in romance books and it was nice to have a happily ever after that didn’t involve the heroine getting pregnant and rejecting her ‘shallow’ city life.

Emily Henry has become an auto-buy author for me, so you might say these reviews are a little biased, but oh well, it’s my blog not yours!