OKAY STOP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING AND GO READ THIS BOOK!! WOW I LOVED everything about this book, the romance, the past and present POV, the humor, the different vacations, the side characters, and SO much more. This was a wonderful book that so far is one of my top this year! I thought Emily Henry's writing was fabulous and I love the characters. This truly was a great book!!

Super cute! Love to see friends to lovers and such a slow-burn!

I absolutely love this. I will pick up all of Emily Henry's books

A really well-done slow-burn friends-to-lovers romance. The substantive flashbacks throughout the novel were effective for helping us understand the history of Alex and Poppy’s friendship up until the present day—a major omission in many friends to lovers stories, where we often get no more than a prologue for the back story. The ending was a little rushed but otherwise this was an absorbing read.

I read this entire book in a day because that's how good it was.

I love Poppy's free-spiritedness, but I also enjoy how Alex's anal-retentive self.

This was more than your average romantic comedy. There was real character growth for Poppy and Alex. You cared about them getting their shit together, so they could end up being together.

Thanks netgalley for an early copy! After hearing rave reviews for Emily Henry’s previous book Beach Read, I knew I had to read this. I love that it was equally about their friendship as it was romance! Great story!

“Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself.”

This is a refreshing, uplifting, warm and totally fun read. Definitely not written with the pandemic in mind but the story will absolutely put you in the mood to travel again! I feel that Julia Whelan deserves her own category here on Goodreads; I had a paperback copy but decided to listen to this on audiobook only because she was the narrator.

Poppy and Alex are complete opposites but are the best of friends. He is a by-the-book teacher and she is a travel writer (dream job, right?) They met in college and used to take one big trip together every summer. Their relationship fell apart two summers before the book begins, and Poppy is desperate to have her friend Alex back in her life again.

Poppy invites Alex on one more trip in a last-ditch effort to salvage their relationship. As their summer trip to Palm Springs turns into an absolute disaster, we get to know each of the characters and what made their relationship so special.

The story is told in two timelines. Past and present alternate until the two timelines meet in the present day and their laughable situation in sweltering Palm Springs. Emily Henry has a wonderful way of creating rich characters and I really can't find anything to criticize about this book other than it didn't seem to have the depth that 'Beach Read' had. Nonetheless I still absolutely recommend 'People We Meet on Vacation' for its 'Harry Met Sally Vibes' and fabulous settings that Poppy gets to visit for her job.

If you like audiobooks, you can't go wrong with this one. This charming book is perfect for your summer reading or listening list!

“I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.”

Poppy: a college dropout with insatiable wanderlust, living her dream in NYC as a blogger who gets paid to travel around the world. Alex: an English literature teacher, living an organized and stable lifestyle in the same hometown he grew up in. They have nothing in common, except for taking glorious one-week vacations together every year for the past decade, ever since fatefully meeting freshman year of college. They've been "just friends" for a decade thanks to bad timing and missed chances, but when they're given the chance of a decade, will they ruin it all?

For fans of One Day in December or This Time Next Year, People We Meet on Vacation brings you a summertime take on missed connections and friends to lovers. It's split into the present (an awkward attempt at vacation after "ruining" their streak two years ago) and the past ten years of vacations. It tool me a while to get into the time-jumps throughout all ten years, and I wonder if the author wrote each timeline simultaneously or if she wrote them separately and chunked them together afterwards. I think maybe the look-back-on-all-the-missed-connections trope isn't for me, considering One Day in December and This Time Next Year didn't do it for me either. But, if that's your thing, you may like this one!

I did enjoy Poppy and Alex's characters, they had some witty banter and had a friendship for the ages. But, you know how when you're trying to tell someone a funny story about something your friend did, but it's funnier in your head, and you kind of just had to be there? This is how I felt the whole book - like a third wheel on all of Poppy and Alex's jokes. The writing was in first-person present-tense in each timeline, but it felt like Poppy needed to "explain" the jokes rather than just letting them happen in real-time and letting me as the reader experience it the way she and Alex would.

Also, I like the premise of traveling to a different country/city every vacation, but it wasn't as dazzling as I would have hoped. When I mentioned summertime earlier, that includes the sweltering heat they had to endure with no AC (I mean, she describes the room as feeling like she's "inside a ziplock bag, inside of someone's body") and the smells of the city that are described in detail. I just would have preferred a bit more wanderlust instead of wander-mustiness?

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkeley Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is without a doubt up there with one of my favorite romance novels of ALL. TIME. And let me tell you why.

🏖 I am a sucker for a book that covers a grand sweeping amount of time - of which we get with this one, switching back & forth between Poppy & Alex’s friendship over time.

🏖 Possibly because this book covers so much time, we are sucked into Poppy’s brain and the LOVE SHE HAS for Alex feels so real. So much more real than the classic “love at first sight” meet-cute I’m used to reading. The character development is so strong, that as a result, the relationship is too.

🏖 Of course: the banter. Alex & Poppy have such a natural flow of conversation, I could not put this book down.

Thank you Berkley Romance for the free copy!

I loved this book! It was a bit slow to start, but once I got a few chapters in, I couldn't put it down!

Poppy is having a millennial crisis- she realizes that the last time she was happy was 2 years ago while on vacation with her best friend, Alex. But she hasn't spoken to Alex since that vacation. Can they save their friendship! Or has it already ended?

I loved the relationship between Poppy and Alex. Its complicated, funny, sweet...and it was so fun to go on their journey. I loved the way the book moved back and forth between vacations and the witty conversations between the 2 characters.

All in all, I adored this book and would recommend it to anyone who loves a friends to lovers trope, or just wants a fun summer read.

Peak friends to lovers tropes up in here. Fun, quick, popcorny summer read. I'll keep this in my pocket to recommond to patrons looking for a fun and happy title this summer.

The story of Poppy and Alex is told through two time lines. One is when they first met, the second is the present time. As the story progresses in both timelines we know something happened to their friendship we just don’t know what. I loved that I got to travel through them in all their annual vacations through the years. The bonus for me is that I’ve been to Palm Springs (their current vacation) many times and I enjoyed their not so perfect vacation on the cheap through the golden state!

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone that wants to read a good story with romance spread throughout. It’s similar to Beach Read, which I read last year and loved! Romance is not the primary focus, but there’s still plenty to satisfy the romantic at heart or anyone wanting to read a good book!

Alex and Poppy have been best friends since college. Even though they live in different states, every summer they reunite and go on vacation together. Over the past couple of years, the two have drifted apart and there have been no vacations together or even much communication. Poppy desperately wants to rekindle their friendship (and maybe more than that) and convinces Alex to joint her on a trip to Palm Springs. They book is tilde through flashbacks of each of their previous vacations and the present day. A sweet friends to lovers story. Poppy and Alex are easy to like and the reader will be rooting for them the whole time.

When one of your favorite authors releases a new book and you are so excited to read it, you will offer a firstborn, kidney, or just about anything to get your hands on a copy. The People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry is just wonderful. I loved Beach Read. It was one of my top reads last year. This will be a top read this year. I loved the whole idea of the story. It reminded me a bit of when Harry met Sally. Love love love.

The writing style and the character add so much to the story. Don't get me wrong, the story is great but I love the characters. I wanted them to keep going. Of course it was a great vacation read as well. Go grab your copy! It out everywhere.

I will continue to read everything Emily Henry will write. I love her books and will gush about them to anyone who will listen.

People We Meet on Vacation
by Emily Henry
Published May 11

Great read! I don't usually read romance books but this one caught my eye. I really enjoyed it and have recommended it to some of my friends as well. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC.

5 star

I am not a *huge* romance reader, but I did enjoy this book. I am a big fan of "When Harry Met Sally", so this came as not a big surprise (and the author even mentioned "You've Got Mail" towards the end of the book, which is one of my all time favourite movies). I waffled between three and four stars, but I'm pretty particular on four (and five) star reads and this one did take me a bit longer than usual to read, so it is a three star read for me, albeit a very solid three stars.

While I'm not big on jumping timelines, I thought the author did a pretty good job with detailing each of the previous summer trips. I was let down by the Croatia incident, as I really thought it would be a much bigger thing. I thought Poppy was incredibly immature and, at times, unlikeable and that Alex was pretty spineless, but I didn't mind them together. I also thought their relationship was super touchy feely for a platonic relationship but, after all, it wasn't really platonic was it?

After devouring and adoring Emily Henry's previous book Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation was hands down my most anticipated book of the year, and I was absolutely not disappointed. Her characters sparkle: Poppy, an energetic free spirit, and Alex, a buttoned-up academic who only lets his guard down around Poppy, shouldn't be best friends. And yet. They've gotten closer over their decade of friendship, with Poppy only occasionally letting herself think about the possibility that sometimes, maybe things aren't entirely platonic between them.

The way Emily Henry writes her characters and develops their friendships (in both this book and Beach Read) just perfectly hit my unofficial and unwritten checklist of what I want in a romance. The bond between two people who know each other better than anyone else in the world will always get me weak in the knees. This is another stellar work from Henry, and now I'm left with the same feeling I had after Beach Read: I can't wait for the next one.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy of People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fast read for me because I loved it so much and just flew through the pages. And just like I was with Beach Read, I couldn't decide if I want to binge read it or savor it! I'm amazed at how Henry delivers so many feels, ALL the feels. I was anxious, giddy, swoony, frustrated. And that dual timeline is a delicious torture! The writing is just so clever and literally laugh-out-loud funny. This book is an absolute MUST READ for the summer! ⁣
⁣

I will say that I went into this book without have read Beach Reads last year. I enjoyed the chemistry, writing style, and overall good feels from this book that I will definitely be jumping on the Beach Reads train next.

I want to be in love in the way that Emily Henry wants me to be in love. After a somewhat strained relationship with Beach Read (I was supposed to love it but I did not), I was unsure about how I was going to feel about People We Meet on Vacation. But, I felt completely and utterly full after it. I feel so involved and invested in both the lives and love lives of Poppy and Alex. Both characters feel so fully-formed and raw that I would not be surprised if I passed by them on the street. Their banter and wit genuinely made me laugh out loud and I want people to fall in love in the way(s) that they do. This is what it should all be about: books, life, love, ect. All the good stuff.

In short: 2 best friends. 10 summer trips. 1 last chance to fall in love.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book and it was perfect timing to get me in the mood for vacation. One thing the author does well is create a layered story with strong characters. This book was funny, engaging, emotional and has you cheering for true love.

What I liked:
Dual timelines - This was told in alternating current day and past summers.

Poppy & Alex - Their tight friendship, all the ups and downs and progression by the end of the book was well done. I was so invested in them, sympathizing with the them and rooting for them.

All the travel! What a dream job it would be to be a travel blogger. At the same time I loved that Poppy realized even though this was her dream job, it was t what made her truly happy.