Emily Henry’s debut contemporary romance had what sounded like a fun concept and a great title, so I requested an ARC from the publisher.

January Andrews is a newly down-on-her-luck romance novelist. January’s boyfriend, Jacques, has recently dumped her, so she doesn’t have anywhere she can afford to live except for the North Bears Shore, Michigan beach house that her late father left her. The house was a love nest for her father and his mistress, Sonya, the woman with whom he cheated on January’s mother.

January has always believed in happy endings. Her parents seemed blissfully in love; her mother had triumphed over cancer. So the realization that her father betrayed her mother devastated her. The house is the last place where January wants to live.

Still, she’s dead broke and has nowhere else to go.

The night January moves in, a loud party next door keeps her from sleep, so she starts out on the wrong foot with her nearest neighbor. Then she recognizes him—he is none other than Augustus “Gus” Everett, who was a couple of years ahead of her in college. January and Gus were in the same writing class, where Gus, so January thought, belittled the optimism in her writing. Gus went on to write literary novels that revolve around tragedies, while January wrote books that were happier and more fun.

Now, however, January can’t sustain her optimism and her belief in happy endings. She owes her editor a manuscript by the end of summer, but nothing she tries writing sticks. After another run-in with Gus, she makes a bet with him: if each writes in the other’s genre, the one to sell his or her book first will get book blurbs and publicity from the other. During the time they work on their novels, they will take each other on research excursions: January will show Gus how to research romances; Gus will show her how to do the same for literary fiction.

January also has another, unacknowledged purpose for being in her late father’s house. She wants to know him better, to understand what drove him, and to get the answers to the questions it is now too late to ask. Running into Sonya is almost inevitable in a town as small as North Bears Shore, but for January it is almost hurtful.

As the summer progresses, Gus and January get closer, and January begins to see that Gus isn’t the book snob she took him for. She also realizes he’s vulnerable. He had a rough childhood and more recent difficulties too. She’s attracted to him, but feels Gus isn’t one for long-term relationships. In college he had a reputation for having one-night stands and that’s not what she wants. Even after learning of her father’s betrayal, she is far too prone to falling in love to keep sex casual.

Where will January and Gus’s involvement lead? Which of them will win the bet? Will January ever get over her anger at her father, and will she get the answers she wants?

This book had some enjoyable aspects, high among them the “research” outings January planned for orienting Gus toward the romance genre—visits to a fairground, a Meg Ryan marathon at the local drive-in theater and more. These were fun and captured a lighthearted spirit that most of the novel didn’t share.

Likewise, I thought the sex scenes were well-written and hot. Physicality was described well in other parts of the book, too.

This is a partial review. The complete review can be found here:

https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-c-reviews/c-minus-reviews/review-beach-read-by-emily-henry-2/

5/5 stars

This book surprised me in so many ways, and I could not get enough of it. It was the first book in a very long time (more than a year) that I read all in one sitting, and I stayed up until almost 3 am finishing it! It gave me allllllll the feels and includes some really *real* topics as well as the usual lighter fare of a contemporary romance. I highly recommend it.

January (how great is that name, by the way?) and Gus were each developed so well as their own character, and then the combination of them together was so fun to read and watch unfold. I usually love dual perspectives for a romance, but this one is all from January's perspective, and I actually liked that more. It gave some suspense and surprise as to who exactly Gus was and what his motivations were. I like how these characters were like yin and yang, but not in overt and therefore unrealistic ways. Just in a subtle way of how they view the world, formed very much by how they grew up and were treated in their relationships with their parents. I also love that the fundamental message of this story is one of hope. Sure, we can go through bad things, and those bad things might knock us down for a while, but in the end, we can get up, and we're likely to find a hand reaching out to help us if we just look for it.

This book also has all the other things I love best in a contemporary romance: interesting and realistic side characters who force the main characters to be "real," wonderful and snarky dialogue, and a plot that's interesting. I love that they were both writers and we got to see into their daily habits and routines as writers, the struggle with writer's block, and just how they approached their work. Again, they were both so different, but in the end, not as different as they may have seemed on the surface. I loved the bet and watching them try to write like the other.

Overall, I just want to say: read this book. It's really great.

I really liked and enjoyed reading Beach Read. I liked the premise, the plot, the main characters, and the secondary ones as well. I liked how the book flowed and their feelings revealed about each other, even the 2 steps forward, 1 step back. A delightful read.

Funny and relaxing story with just enough depth to keep things grounded. I liked the premise, and I would recommend this non-romance fans as well as genre die-hards.

Loved this literary rom com - believable characters, great dialog, well paced. Rival authors who are neighbors fall in love and learn alot about themselves and their own stories.

Beach Read will perhaps be one of my favorite reads of the year. While it is a romance book, it is so much more than a romance between two characters. It is a tender and moving novel about two people who help each other become better versions of themselves, and fall in love along the way. The two main characters are both authors who are staying in a little seaside town to write their novels and they are working on strict deadlines. While one writes fluffy romance, the other writes serious literary fiction. When they start to spend more time together, they realize that they each had major misconceptions about one another that dated back to their college days. This is an irresistible book that I couldn't put down. It's captivating, romantic, and oh so lovely.

A delightful summer read based on an interesting premise. I wonder if two authors have ever embarked on such a deal i think it would be harder than they made it seem, but it worked. Bring this one to the beach for sure!

January and Gus will stay with me for a while. Their story is sweet, sad, sexy and so funny all at the same time. I highly recommend this to romance fans but try not to go in with too many preconceived notions because I think this book will defy your expectations in many ways. It made me laugh out loud and it also brought tears to my eyes, which I wasn't expecting at all, but it was a welcome surprise. I'm about to go read everything Emily Henry has every written.

Are you guys wondering if Beach Read lives up to all the hype? Because it totally does. Following the story of a writer who discovers her father had a second life she never knew about, Beach Read is part romance and part journey of self-discovery. After her father’s death and her breakup with her longtime boyfriend, January Andrews is stuck in a rut, having lost faith in the happy endings she loves to write about. With a deadline fast approaching, she’s scrambling to come up with a story, until inspiration strikes from an unlikely source: her new neighbor and college rival, Augustus Everett. A friendly competition and a crash course into their respective genres leads to a spark of attraction that grows the more they unravel each other’s innermost thoughts and desires. ⠀
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What I love about Beach Read is the writing. It’s engaging and evocative and drew me in from the first page. As a heroine, January is relatable, but complex, and I enjoyed peeling back all the layers of her character. The romance lover in me swooned and sighed over the slow-burning, yet intense connection between January and Gus. The combination of their banter, their chemistry, and their quick wit made it impossible for me to put the book down. Beach Read is hilarious, heartfelt, steamy, and just plain amazing. I can’t recommend it enough!

January Andrews and Gus Everett met in college, and clashed rather than connected. They were both aspiring writers, but with very different styles and goals.

Some years later, January is a successful "happily ever after" romance writer, with three books to her credit, and Gus is a serious literary writer with two successful and well-received books.

Also, January's father has died, and his lover shows up for the funeral, and gives January a letter from her father, and a key. It turns out that January's mother knew about the lover, Sonya, and Does Not Want To Talk About Any Of It. January is devastated, and for now, can't see past the wreckage of her illusions of her parents' happy marriage to write her next book, which is under contract and has a due date.

The key Sonya gave her is to a beach house on Lake Michigan, that her father has left to her. She heads there, planning to work on her book while also working on selling first the contents of the house, and then selling the house. When she arrives, she soon finds that her next door neighbor is now Gus Everett.

Once again, they do not hit it off.

Slowly, we realize that Gus has his own case of writer's block, and much more slowly, we find out what emotional trauma is behind that for him.

In a small town, and with the coffee shop and the bookstore in town both owned by Gus's friendly, outgoing aunt, not to mention living next door, they can't avoid each other. And despite making rude cracks about each other's writing choices, they make a deal to tackle their writer's block.

January will write a serious, dark novel with an unhappy ending.

Gus will write a funny, happy-ending romcom.

On Fridays, Gus will lead January through the process of researching his characteristic kind of novel.. On Saturdays, January will lead Gus through researching a romcom.

We get to know very well-developed, likable characters. Henry does a nice job of building these characters through the gradual revelation of their past experiences, and growing acquaintance with the people who matter to them. It's enjoyable and funny and serious, and well worth some of your time.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

I was so delightfully surprised by the depth of emotion in this book. I was expecting a romantic comedy and discovered so much more.

Emily Henry did an amazing job weaving this story together and bringing out all the feels. I have suffered a loss in my life and the way she describes grief was how I experienced my own grief.

The main characters were flawed, but so real. I loved the snarky humor and the banter. The attraction was hot and the steam just right. The growth in the characters was beautiful and I just didn't want this book to end.

Thank you Emily Henry! This is a fabulous beach read that is so much more than a beach read. I loved every moment.

I absolutely loved this! IT has more substance than I think a typical 'beach read' and was such a fun twist on it!

Thank you for the review copy.

I don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said about this book. I definitely thought it lived up to the hype and was a great BOTM pick for a variety of readers. It is smart, emotional and much more than a beach read. One of my top books of the year.

I honestly loved this book so much. It does deal with some heavier subjects as both January and Gus are struggling and trying to get through some things in their past, but overall, it just felt like a really light and cute read.

January and Gus are both writers, January writes romance and Gus writes literary fiction, and they're both experiencing writer's block. They are also former college kinda rivals which adds a fun layer to their interactions. They form a plan to write in each other's genre and go on excursions that would relate to each of their writing journeys. Through the research trips and the cute rom-com-y trips, they get to know each other more and more and develop feelings for each other.

January is struggling with her father's death and finding out about his infidelity. Gus is going through a divorce that is putting him through more than he expected. I love that each one of them kind of has to stop and face the things that are holding them back on their own, before they go back and really try with each other. They each kind of drag their feet on it, but they eventually go and face these things.

I just had such a fun time reading this. Also, I might have teared up a little bit during a chapter. Watching January face all the things that she was hiding from since she arrived at that house really hit me. I just loved it so much because it didn't just explain away this one thing that she'd been struggling with but it painted her father as a full and flawed person. Yes, he did these things, but ultimately he loved January so much and she was able to have that closure with him even though he was already gone. I loved that so much.

I've had this one sitting on by tbr pile for a few months, and after seeing all the rave reviews, I bumped it up to the top. I don't know about anyone else, but this whole quarantine thing has me in a reading slump, so I was hoping this would help get me back into the swing of things.

Unfortunately, while it wasn't a <i>bad</i> book, I did not love it.

The cover itself was very misleading, in my opinion. This wasn't really a fun, light, and sweet <i>Beach Read</i> at all.

January Andrews is our main character, and when first we meet her, she's on her way to Great Bear Shores, Michigan for the summer. Her goal: finish the book she's promised her agent, and clean out her father's home that, prior to his death, he shared with his mistress. On her first evening in town, she has a bit of a run-in with her new, temporary neighbor...who is throwing a very loud party.

However, it isn't until the next morning that she realizes just who that neighbor is: Augustus Everett. Acclaimed author of Real Fiction. Or Gus, as she knows him. Her rival from college. The boy who picked apart all of her stories, and disrespected her love for all things Happily Ever After.

Now that these two have reunited they realize they're both struggling with the same issue: writer's block. They hatch a plan to swap roles. January will attempt to write Real Fiction, while Gus will make his best attempt at a Happily Ever After.

Like I said, this wasn't a bad book. I mean, Emily is a fantastic writer, and the smut was fantastic. The slow burn was nice. I just was't wowed by the whole falling in love bit between these two. Gus didn't make me swoon. I wanted swoon. I wanted all the swoons. I wanted more proof of the feelings between these two instead of the assumption that it existed.

I was only a few chapters in when I knew I was going to love this book. Although how a book that involves researching a murder-suicide cult can possibly be this cute I really don’t know. But it is.

I’ve read a lot of romance books lately, from steamy to rom-com, to cry-your-eyes-out-heartbreaking and I was starting to think there were no really new stories in the world. Until Beach Read. It was refreshingly different.

January and Gus are both novelists who end up living next door to each other (for reasons I won’t reveal in order to avoid spoilers). They enter into a bet that the other person couldn’t swap genres for their next book. They help each other with different research methods and activities, which naturally end up like bizarre sorts of dates as they both write their next novels.

The characters in Beach Read are wonderful, well actually they’re pretty flawed, but they’re wonderfully developed. And while it’s no surprise that they become involved it was beautiful to watch them uncover things about each other and help the other grow and move through their insecurities and past trauma.

Plus the book is packed with hilarious details about the writing process. Like when you’re watching a movie and the lead suddenly turns to the camera and speaks to you directly, letting you in on a little secret. They even talk about their favorite reviews, like the guy that left one star on Amazon saying “Did not order Book” or the ones who explain what the author was ‘really’ trying to do. As a reviewer, that had me in stitches.

Through their genre-swap Gus and January are researching a cult called New Eden though, and there are a few dark topics and moments touched on, so be aware of that going into it.

I love that the author wrote this book, about writer’s block, because she actually had writer’s block. She was itching to write, but no sparks of an idea or story were coming to her, so she started researching and thinking about writer’s block itself…and now here we are!

This gets all the stars from me, and the audiobook is wonderful too if you’d like to be read to. It is narrated by Julia Whelan, who has also performed books such as Educated, The Giver of Stars, Pretty Things, The Wife Stalker, The Great Alone, Gone Girl etc.

This is one of the absolute best fiction/romance books I've read in recent memory. It follows the story of a woman who writes happy endings and a man who writes anything but. They are old rivals and end up neighbors, with a bet to switch writing styles for the summer. I loved that it dealt with actual issues outside of just the romance. It made the book so we'll rounded and realistic.

Meet January and Gus. January is a romance author and lover of happy endings. Gus writes lit fiction and knows that in real life there are no happy endings, and his books reflect that. The two first met in university where they developed a healthy rivalry as budding authors. Flash forward a few years to January moving into her father's beach house after his sudden passing, only to discover that Gus lives next door. This book is the story of the summer that they spend living next to one another.

I cannot stop thinking about how much I adored this book. Obviously, January and Gus end up spending a lot of time together since they live next door to one another, and I had so much fun tagging along on their "dates" as they educate each other about their genre of choice. This book was just so much fun but had enough of a compelling story that it isn't just a typical "fluff" book. Highly recommend picking this one up!

Before this book was everywhere, it was in my inbox. five months ago no one had been buzzing about this book when the pitch email came in, but it sounded cute and my spring calendar was open so I decided to give this one a go.

Flash forward to April and suddenly everyone and suddenly everyone is dying to read this book and people who have read it are raving about it! Suddenly it became imperative for me to read this one as soon as possible!

I picked it up one sunny afternoon in April and two days later at 6 am I was done reading it.

Summary
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really. (summary from Goodreads)

Review
This book is incredible. If you were on the fence about it because of the hype, don’t even worry because it was absolutely worth the hype! It’s not often that a romance book like this packed such a heavy hitting punch but this book totally does it. The second I started reading, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down, but it was a book that while I was devouring it, I was also feeling so many things at a core level.

I adored Gus, I mean, my god he was sexy, sweet, and even if he came with emotional baggage, I was swooning for more Gus! I like my heroes complicated with issues (I know I’m weird like that!) and Gus was this complex, multilayered beef cake that I wanted to know more about every time he was there! As for January, even if she was romantic in the extreme and emotional, I found that I very much wanted to be friends with her even if I am not the emotional romantic that she is. All the shit she was going through with her family and her personal life was so real and raw, I couldn’t help but be drawn into her life and feel all her emotions.

I was incredibly caught up in this book and the romance between Gus and January. I thought it had spark, chemistry, and feeling. This book was easily a favorite for me. There was just so much cuteness, romance, and real life shit that I just devoured it. This was easily a top read for me this year and deserves all the 5 star ratings it can get. If you are worried that this might be ‘just another romance’ it is absolutely not. This romance has so much to enjoy, especially if you love books! Pick it up this is going to be a huge book for the spring/summer crowd!

Book Info and Rating
Paperback, 368 pages
Expected publication: May 19th 2020 by Berkley
ISBN 1984806734 (ISBN13: 9781984806734)
Free review copy provided by publisher, Berkley, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and in no way influenced.
Rating: 5 stars
Genre: romance, contempo romance

Enjoyable summer read about not losing sight of our happy-for-nows in search of a happily ever after.