Beach Read is a poignant, emotional, wonderful journey that I purposefully read slowly to savor every intentional word. January and Augustus reconnect by chance in a sleepy Michigan lake town, and challenge each other to write a book in their respective genre. The premise of the book is predictable - January sets out to write the next great American novel, and Augustus is to write a happily ever after. What unfolds is such a special story that bends and twists and brings in other generations masterfully. The prose is perfect - simple, emotional, and slowly weaves together a story that goes beyond January and Gus. Beach Read blew me away, and it was a joy to read.

Thank you to @berkleypub and @netgalley for my digital copy of this book which comes out May 19, 2020. Well this book matches its name perfectly! Everyone needs this in your beach bag this summer. I was worried it was going to be too light of a read for me but as you get into it, there is enough depth to the story plus some steamy scenes to keep you hooked. I loved that the main characters were writers and the witty banter was well done. 😂This is such a fun book and the quintessential summer read. You can get it now via @bookofthemonth or preorder it from your local bookstore to support them during these crazy times. You can find this review on my Instagram @carolinehoppereads and my Goodreads account.

Beach Read was a clever, fun romance but it ultimately fell a little short for me.
The setup for the story – two writers that challenge each other to write outside their comfort zones – was fun. The evolution of their relationship from enemies, to neighbors, to friends, to more felt organic. I liked that a lot of the plot felt almost meta (how will he use his research about a cult in a rom-com, while the characters in this rom-com are researching a cult)
What didn’t work for me was January, the main character. She just annoyed me, and I know she wasn’t supposed to. On the surface, her emotional/personal journey is one I usually like. Her work and relationships are falling apart, and she’s questioning who she is and what she really believes. That’s a good foundation for any book.
I think my main problem was that every emotional high point and all the conflicts seemed very contrived and like overreactions on her part. The first time it happened, I was fine. Ah, they resolved it and now there will be a basis to look back and not jump to conclusions. But then every time any problem came about it was for the same exact reason – jumping to conclusions and not even trying to talk about it.
I think I’m just tired of miscommunication/lack of communication being the main driving force behind romance stories.

Thank you @NetGalley and @Berkley for a digital ARC of Emily Henry's Beach Read.

I was interested in this book from seeing it on Instagram. I am SO glad I was able to read it. January Andrews and Gus Everett are writers of different genres and wind up in the same small town one summer. Rivals, they bet the other can't write a book in the opposite genre before the end of summer. The book is a meta-fictive approach which incorporates romance and healing from family secrets.

Beach Read was perfect. That's it. That's the review. It was perfect and I'll be recommending it to everyone I know for the forseeable future.

Enemies to lovers? X
Past love interest returns? X
Grumpy hero and glowing heroine? X
Sad backstories to unite them? X
Hot? X

I will read this book over and over again.

This was such a disappointing read for me. I was bored pretty much the entire time. I went into it expecting something much different than I got.

Woo, boy. I had HIGH expectations for this book. A few bloggers/booktubers I follow closely loved this one (and Madalyn told me I'd love it) so I was really preparing to be wowed. And I totally was. This book exceeded my lofty expectations.

January, a romance writer, and her college nemesis and literary fiction writer, Gus, end up neighbors in a sleepy Michigan beach town for the summer. January is getting through the death of her father and all of the secrets she's learned in the wake of his passing, all while trying to clear his house (and second life) and write a new book. She's not feeling very romance-y at the moment and when her and Gus meet up, they decide to swap genres for the summer and see if that breaks their writer's block. Naturally, they get closer throughout the summer, and take each other on genre-relevant field trips so the other person really learns what they should be writing about.

I LOVED that this book was very much a typical romance book (and sort of a love letter to the genre) while also managing to invent new tropes. Who knew that TWO grumpy main characters could be so perfect?! Usually you have one grumpy and one happy, with the happy one trying to make the grumpy one finally soften up. January and Gus both had different reasons to be salty with each other and with the world, which led to some amazing banter between the two. Their chemistry was so refreshing and their relationship felt natural to me.

I adored the side characters, like Pete and Shadi. Every aspect of both characters' lives felt well-done and fully fleshed out, which can be hard when you're not writing a dual-POV (in my opinion). I felt like I knew both characters intimately by the time it was over. I don't want to spoil the ending, but it was so nice to have a lower-stress "black moment" in this book. I just needed something light but still with a lot of depth; Henry managed to deliver both so well.

I definitely managed to laugh out loud AND tear up multiple times throughout the book, so you could call that a success. No doubt this will be in my top few books of the year, which makes me incredibly happy. This was exactly the book I needed when a pandemic was causing stress and my reading was down in the dumps.

January Andrews is heartbroken. A recent tragedy has left her penniless and alone with a severe case of writer's block. Her new next-door neighbor and old college rival Augustus Everett isn't faring much better. So one night, after copious amounts of wine and donuts, they strike up a deal to swap genres. He will write a sappy, swoon-worthy romance, while she pens a deeply depressing work of literary fiction. To help each other out, they devote two nights a week to lessons on their literary processes. For him, that's interviews with cult survivors, and for her, that's trips to the carnival or beach. Oh, and throughout this challenge, they definitely won't be falling in love.

January and Gus were characters who stayed with me long after I'd finished the book. There was just so much depth of feeling to their struggle to find something to believe in again, and for them to discover that love and trust in each other was a beautiful thing. I already can't wait to read this one again.

I think Emily has a smart, witty story. However, I think it may need to be shelved as general fiction as it doesn't quite satisfy rom com romance genre conventions. Full thoughts and review posted on bookbub at https://www.bookbub.com/profile/nisha-sharma

When two authors, both with writer's block, live next door to each other for the summer, will they be able to help each other through? Short answer, yes. Longer answer, there is a history between the two authors than the blurb demands. And did we need to have that backstory? I don't know. It built on their history but it took up pages that could have gone to developing their current relationship. Usually I like a second chance romance but this book almost would have been better without it so the readers could have discovered the romance along with the main characters. The beginning dragged a bit (our romance writing heroine has had her happy-ever-after-believing soul shaken twice recently; both stories are ruminated on a lot but wrapped up oddly quickly) and the end could have developed a bit more (though I did like the image of linked Happy-For-Right-Nows rather than an HEA) but the middle was a lovely story of two people falling slowly in love.
I always wonder if stories like this come from someone who had writer's block but overall, a nice story with some interesting glimpses into the life of a writer.

Three stars
This book comes out May 19th
ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

This book was not what I was expecting it to be...it was even better. Beach Read is probably the least predictable romance I've read, and I've read A LOT. January (I'm sorry how cute is that name?) is dealing with the falout of her father's death and the revelations of who he was that came after. She flees to the house he left her to conquer writer's block and work on her next book.
Gus is January's next door neighbor and her nemesis from college. They decide to try writing their next books in each other's genre, which leads to them spending a lot of time together discussing how to write a story in a totally new drama.
I LOVED Gus and January. I loved their brokenness and how neither one of them wanted to let that stop them. I loved their vulnerability, not only with each other, but also alone. My only wish would be for more from Gus' perspective and what he was going through. In a lot of ways, he sounds like a more interesting character.
I highly recommend this book to any romance readers who want that story with heart and love, but with a lovely change of pace to keep you on your toes.

REVIEW | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Beach Read by Emily Henry, release May 19

January is a romance writer with writers block who goes to stay at her late-father’s beach house. Her neighbour is non other than her college nemesis, Gus, a literary fiction writer. When the two challenge each other to write a book in other’s genre, January learns an entirely new side to Gus, and herself.

First, let me start by saying I really liked this book.
⭐️I thought the writing style was beautiful
⭐️the characters’ backstories were rich, emotional, and layered
⭐️the slow burn pacing (the steam, the black moment) was spot on
⭐️I always love reading books about meta romance!!
⭐️I loved both January and Gus. I rooted for them the entire time!

Admittedly, the marketing of this book confused me. The cover and the synopsis on the back led me to believe this was an ultra fun, light, romance read. I thought it would be a literal “beach read”. It was not. It was beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But it actually quite heavy, emotional, raw, and sad throughout. There are a lot of trigger warnings for this one: cancer, death of parent, abuse... this marketing is not the fault of the author by any means. But I do find it could have done with a less peppy cover.

Related to this was while I did love the writing style, it really bounced back an forth between funny and light, and then literary and heavy a f. Again, I love both writing styles. There’s no rule that says the two shall never meet. But it did kind of confuse me a bit.

All in all, I truly did love this book! Highly recommend. Just be sure you’re ready for an angstier, heavier romance as opposed to something light.

Massive thank you to Berkley, Netgalley and Emily Henry for this lovely ARC 💗

WOW, this was so good!

I'm a big fan of rom-coms, and this was utter perfection. Easily one of my favorite books I've read this year so far.

This was real, raw and self-aware, yet still super swoony and romantic. This book doesn't shy away from the bad things; it actually embraces them. This was super different from what I was expecting, but I loved it all the same. It was the perfect mix between romance and literary fiction, which, funnily enough, is what the two main characters in this book, who are both authors, write.

All the characters were so well-developed, especially our two main protagonists. The banter between Gus and January was exceptional. And THE ROMANCE Y'ALL. I couldn't have hoped for a better enemies-to-lovers story. This was perfect in every way.

It was Emily Henry book, but I now want to give her other books a try!

Romance writer January Andrews has three months to finish her next book, so for a change of scenery, she’s staying in a beach house so she can focus. Problem is she’s got writers’ block.
Someone else has writers’ block as well — Augustus Everett, who has had success with his literary fiction, happens to be staying in the rental next door.
The local bookshop owner loves the fact that she has two authors staying in their little town, so she takes advantage of it by inviting both to come to her shop. When they might, January discovers that Augustus is the man who has been disturbing her thoughts with his loud music. In the course of a conversation, they both agree to switch genres: she will write a literary novel and he will write something “happy.”
I enjoyed the interaction between the main characters in particular.

What happens when a romance writer finds that everything she believes about love is wrong? When this happens to January she gets writer's block and heads to the house she never knew her father had. As luck would have it her college nemesis, Gus, also a writer, living next door. What starts as a competition to end their writer's block turns into something more. A story of loss and finding yourself and a life you never expected. This took me away from the world for a few hours.

I've been excited for this one ever since I heard about it and it did not disappoint! This was super cute and so much fun. It also felt incredibly realistic. These characters felt so real the entire time and I loved experiencing their story. I'm so excited for this to come out and for everyone to experience it.

I decided to finally pick this up today in my task to get through my ARC pile and I AM SO GLAD I DID. A hilarious, achey, beautifully-written enemies-to-lovers romance that made me yearn for my own beach house writer's retreat. I loved that January and Gus had history together outside of a random summer encounter, and that their misconceptions about each other contributed to so much fantastic tension as they slowly got to know each other differently than they did in their college years. There's a lot of emotional baggage for them to work through together and hurdles to clear, but I appreciate that Henry's characters are honest enough to acknowledge their own messiness and why that doesn't make them any less deserving of love.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

3.5 stars.

I finished this last night and decided to sleep on it before writing a review. Is it a high C or a low B? I'm saying low B - only because I can't quite put my finger on why it didn't work for me. And in case anyone cares, the title is as misleading as the picture on the cover - neither of which has anything to do with the story within.

January's life is in free fall. After a mostly idyllic childhood, <i>aside from her mother's two bouts with cancer</i>, she's a published romance author in a committed relationship with a near perfect boyfriend. She has great parents who love her, and each other. Life is good. She's happy, she thinks. Ahem.

Unfortunately, when <b>Beach Read</b> begins, it's been just under a year since the sudden death of January's beloved father. The father who she belatedly discovered kept A LOT of secrets. Secrets like his long term affair while married to her mother. Secrets like the second home he sometimes shared with the other woman. Secrets that her mother already knew. And since meeting 'the other woman,' at her father's funeral - when the stranger pressed an envelope and key into her hands before fleeing - January is an emotional mess.

Unable to talk to her mother about the affair, unable to write, unable to continue in her own 'perfect' relationship...her life is a shambles. So she escapes to her father's beach home (oh, poor January) to try and put herself together. Her sojourn gets off to a rocky start when she discovers her neighbor is none other than Augustus Everett, an acclaimed author of literary fiction. The same Gus who was once her college nemesis/secret crush. The same Gus who looked down on romantic fiction and January. The same Gus who she shared one magical night with.

So that's the set-up. All good. I like the friends to enemy trope, and Ms. Henry does an excellent job putting her principal characters into regular contact with one another. Unfortunately, her characterization of these two never really gets much deeper than these essentials. It's clear January wasn't the only one who once had a crush, and they're antagonistic early meetings are half hearted, at best. Eventually we learn more about why Gus might have a slightly darker side - and that he has some pretty significant secrets of his own, but aside from their interactions with each other and with some of the stereotypical secondary characters (or, caricature's) that are always present in these little towns, these two mostly exist in a bubble of their own making. Most of what we know about them is colored by their relationships with their parents, and their skewed memories of their college years. I felt like I knew more about January's dad than I did about her - and the story is entirely told via her POV!

Even though I felt her characters are underdeveloped, I enjoyed the snarky, funny, sharp dialogue between Gus and January, and it's a highlight of the novel. Both characters love a good zinger, and I giggled a few times when they delivered a particularly excellent one. These two have great chemistry, and the best parts of the story are definitely when they're together on the page. The author, who I believe writes mostly YA, does an excellent job building the sexual tension...until we get to the actual sex scenes. They're awkward, involve lots of January getting into Gus's lap (every time!), and are much too brief. Perfunctory almost. I was so excited for all that steam to combust in some juicy lovemaking, and when it doesn't, it's a major letdown. Frankly, a fade to black might have been better. Henry is all tease and zero delivery.

But let me circle back a bit. Gus and January wind up in each other's pockets after they challenge each other to write a novel in each other's preferred genre. January uses Gus's research trips as a framework for her story, and - well, maybe it's a spoiler - Gus doesn't? For most of the book, I assumed the climatic scene would include them realizing they were both writing the same story with different endings! A story about themselves and their unfolding relationship! Am I the only one who thought that? Look, I think the books provided a great opportunity to delve deeper into how each of these character felt about what was developing between them, and instead they were just sort of meh revelations. A missed opportunity for sure.

<b>Beach Read</b> is an occasionally funny, sometimes steamy, mostly good rom-com. It wasn't quite what I expected, and I didn't walk away from it with all the happy feels many of my friends expressed. I still don't feel like January's complicated memories of her father are sufficiently resolved, and the ending is underwhelming.

I liked it, but I don't know if I would recommend it.

Easily my favorite book of the year so far. I just finished it and I already want to do a re-read to spend some more time with January and Gus. MY HEART. This book was equal parts swooney and grumbley while also being SO self-aware and I loved every little bit of it. Plus, the banter in this was *chef's kiss* PERFECTION.

I didn't know what to expect, I went to this one blind and I really enjoyed it!I was hooked immediately and I find the story intrigued. This is a love story between two very broken and complex characters.I liked the romance it was slow burn.

"Bad things don't dig down through your life until the pit's so deep that nothing good will ever be big enough to make you happy again. No matter how much shit, there will always be wildflowers."

Well developed characters and a story that touched me from the beginning!It has all the feelings, you will laugh , cry , be frustrated in a good way and feel overwhelming!This book was really good!I'll definitely check this authors other books!