How? How does Emily Henry manage to write a perfect book every time?! And HOW did she top Beach Read? (I mean, don’t get me wrong, I will always love Beach Read), but People We Meet on Vacation is easily my favorite book of the year!

I absolutely feel head over heels in love with Alex & Poppy; with their friendship, with their quirks, their hilarious witty banter, and the chemistry and was shooting off the page. The “best friends-turned lovers/can men and women actually be friends?” storyline can be so tricky to pull of and Henry nailed with every step of the way. These characters felt real. Their passions and fears felt so relatable. Their journey felt tangible and like a miracle all at once. And I loved being with them on their journeys to finding their way home.

I loved every minute of this story and I highly recommended everyone read it as soon as possible!

This is probably one of the most hyped books I've read this year. And I actually had a hard time getting into this book. We know that Alex and Poppy are best friends, but they haven't spoken to each other in two years. Something happened on that last vacation together and they haven't spoken since. Now, Poppy reaches out and they agree to go on vacation again. We get chapters that alternate between past vacations throughout their 12 year friendship and this current vacation. The whole time, I wanted to know what drove them apart. We don't even get that answer until wayyyyyy into the book and I found it so anticlimactic. If you're going to drag out this big secret for the reader, I was expecting something huge and not something pretty minor. This book relies heavily on Alex and Poppy just refusing to talk to one another about their feelings. That's it. They wouldn't admit they liked each other and then they refused to talk about what had happened between them on that last vacation. This actually drove me crazy and I was just so frustrated with those two. They couldn't have an honest conversation with each other for 12 years!?! I do get they both had some pretty big insecurities and problems with understanding what they really wanted out of life, but I was just frustrated by the non-communication plot line.

Also, this book is over 350 pages long and I didn't find myself loving all of the past vacation chapters. They were cute, but I didn't really feel any chemistry developing between them like I think I was supposed to, so it just read as two friends growing super close. Maybe that was the point? But the suuupppeerrrrr slow burn of that romance was just too slow for me. I especially felt like the beginning dragged too much.

I feel like I have a lot of negatives of this book, but I still did enjoy the story. If it wasn't so hyped, I don't think I would have as many complaints. Maybe I'm just being too picky, but this wasn't everything I thought it was going to be.

3.5 stars

After reading and loving Emily Henry’s adult contemporary debut last year, I was really eager to read People We Meet on Vacation. Poppy is a free-spirited young woman who lives to wander the world and is lucky enough to call that her job. Or at least, she felt that way up until recently, when she realizes she’s in a rut and that the last time she was truly happy was two years ago when she was on summer vacation with her (ex?) best friend Alex (an annual tradition for years up until said fateful trip). Desperate to make things right with Alex, Poppy invites him on vacation… and he agrees to come. Poppy has one week to sort things out (for herself and between them), but will it all go according to plan?

After reading two adult contemporaries from Emily Henry, it’s safe to say that I will happily read anything she puts out in the genre. She’s delivered two consistently easy-to-devour novels (that are especially perfect for weekend or vacation reads) that make use of fully recognizable plot and romance tropes, but with a spin all her own when it comes to the characters. While it didn’t quite eclipse its predecessor’s spot as a favorite, People We Meet on Vacation was an equally wonderful read. Sure, the plot played a rather large part in winning my affection, especially with the travel aspect (I really enjoyed reading about their trips!) and the flashbacks to the past. But Poppy and Alex were the true highlight. I’ve always said that it’s my feelings about the main pair that will affect my overall feelings about a novel, and that was certainly true of this one. I enjoyed getting to know them both (they’re very quirky in their own ways), and it was very easy for me to care about their relationship and its development as the years went on. It was lovely to just immerse myself in this story and escape from the world as I read it, and I turned the last page feeling very warm and fuzzy and wonderful indeed. I really enjoyed People We Meet on Vacation, and think many other readers are going to feel the same way! Definitely add this to your TBR if it’s not on there already.

Poppy and Alex met in college and fell into friendship on their long car ride back home to Ohio. Since that fateful car ride, the two have been inseparable. Even though the two live far apart, Poppy in New York City with her fancy journalist job and Alex, at home in Ohio, the two take a summer trip together every year and have for the past ten years until something comes between them and the trips stop. Alex and Poppy haven't spoken to each other much at all since that summer trip two years ago, but when Poppy invites him on one and Alex says "yes", Poppy realizes she has 7 days to try and fix their relationship and get it back to where it used to be.

Something I really loved about this story was the alternating chapters. We follow the present day summer vacation and then the trips from summers past until we find out what has happened in their relationship. This was a really great way to work in the history of their friendship and all about their past together without making the book 500+ pages. Emily Henry did an amazing job at making you fall in love with the characters through their witty banter, their struggles, and most importantly, their undying/unconditional love for each other.

My only critic is that I do feel like it got a bit repetitive with all of the summer vacations and ended up dragging out just a little bit too long, but I really did love Poppy and Alex and their dynamic together!

Overall, this was an incredibly sweet story with amazing chemistry between our two main characters that definitely had me swooning!

Review is also published on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Book a Million.

What can I say except, this book speaks to me!

People We Meet on Vacation is proof that not all sophomore efforts come up short. This book was absolutely fantastic. So fantastic that I'm going to drive people nuts by constantly recommending it! So utterly fantastic that it lands Emily Henry firmly on my exclusive auto-buy no matter what, author list!

Poppy & Alex were fantastic main characters, they were just different enough that they worked. Their banter was next level and instantly made me love them and root for them. Everyone else was the enemy of their happiness! I'm not spoiling anything, we know exactly how this story is going to end. But the thing about contemporary romance is the journey to the inevitable MUST be enjoyable. The flights have to have some entertainment and the layovers need to have solid restaurants, duty free shops and maybe a drug bust! It makes the end that much sweeter!

I'd be lying if I said I didn't channel Sebastian the Crab a couple of times and hum "La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Go on and kiss the girl." The tension was delicious... like Sebastian probably would be. Too dark? *shrug* Seriously though, the slow burn was perfection and while I was definitely antsy I was also like "Whoa whoa, there's no rush, enjoy the trip!" People We Meet on Vacation had me split into two very different people with different wants. They were both happy with how this one played out right until the final page! Hands down one of my favourite books of the... century!

If you love a book with travel, slow burn romance, a just quirky enough main character and a good guy with some pent up feelings, then this book should be on your TBR!

Thank you so much to Berkley and Penguin Random House Canada for a gifted copy of this book.




TW
Death of a parent (in the past, not on the page), Death of a grandparent (in the past, not on the page), Bullying (flashbacks)

People You Meet on Vacation is very much When Harry Met Sally. Two people who share a ride from college become friends, and well, you know the rest...
Poppy and Alex are complete opposites, and while I liked that, I have to admit I was a little perplexed as to why they were even friends. I understood it better in the present, but I wasn’t quite sure how that one car ride sealed their friendship. Poppy is eccentric, and Alex is well not. I think the two played well off each other and saying opposites attract for a reason.
People We Meet on Vacation is told from Poppy’s perspective in alternating timelines, between past and present. The past shows the course of Poppy and Alex’s 11-year friendship, from how they met to how they deal with each other’s significant others. I enjoyed the alternating timelines and did not find it confusing as I do in some books. I felt the back story of these characters was very necessary to tell the current story. I enjoyed the overall story and the mystery of why these two people who were clearly into each other were not only not together but had barely spoken in years.
Overall I liked this book, but I have to admit I preferred Beach Read.

When I first heard about this book I was beyond excited. I ADORED Beach Read and was thrilled to get an advance copy of this book. Unfortunately, I didn't like it as much as her first book. The pacing was slow and I found myself waffling back and forth between exasperation and relating to Poppy. (I related to her way more in the beginning of the book then towards the end.) The exasperation won out leaving me feeling unsatisfied and irked by these two characters love story. Alex was my favorite. The friendship between Alex and Poppy was magical and charming. I guess it was the transition to being a couple that left me unsatisfied.

This book was so emotionally based, it really played with my heart! In the best way! Emily Henery's writing is so authentic, you can picture her character's in real life, struggling in the same way everyday people would, their emotions felt real.
With all these emotions, Henery does know how to spice it up! A slow-burn romance with the anticipation for Alex and Poppy to finally get together kept the pace fast while reading this book.
I loved how this book played out and ended, it's not your typical HEA but one that loved!

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a review, but I’m so excited to be participating in the blog tour for People We Meet on Vacation! Beach Read was an honorable mention in my list of favorite books I read in 2020, so of course People We Meet on Vacation was one of my most anticipated reads this spring and I was thrilled to be invited to this blog tour.

People We Meet on VacationFor starters, People We Meet on Vacation is NOT a sequel to Beach Read, so you don’t have to have read Beach Read in order to enjoy this one! Though of course, if you like one, there’s a good chance you’ll like the other.

People We Meet on Vacation is a friends to lovers romance following Poppy and Alex. These two seemingly opposite people meet in college, where they realize they’re from neighboring small hometowns in Ohio. They don’t become best friends until a road trip home together, and after that, the rest is history.

But as the book opens, we learn that something happened during their annual summer vacation two years ago that changed things between the two of them, and they haven’t talked since. But Poppy misses Alex and texts him about maybe doing another trip together again. Only Alex already has plans to go to his brother’s wedding in Palm Springs, so they agree to turn that trip into their joint vacation.

What follows is the two of them gradually reconnecting and eventually talking about what happened two summers ago during what turns out to be the trip from hell, alternating with flashbacks to previous trips the two of them have taken together throughout the years.

Unfortunately, I do have to admit that this book didn’t really work for me. I think if I had stopped to read the description instead of diving right in off the high of Beach Read, I might have adjusted my expectations and enjoyed People We Meet on Vacation more. You see, I’m just not the biggest fan of friends to lovers! It’s a trope that I think has a lot of angst that I don’t particularly enjoy, and often I just want to shake the couple and tell them they should have figured this stuff out years ago!! So this was already not going to be my favorite book based on that alone.

I also think the flashbacks will be polarizing. I know they really worked for others in showing how Alex and Poppy’s relationship grew and evolved throughout the years and why they didn’t get together sooner, but there were just. So. Many. Flashbacks. Pretty much every other chapter for a good three quarters of the book is a flashback to their different vacations together, but I felt like the flashbacks were them dancing around each other while nothing much happened in the contemporary timeline. It just felt like nothing happened for the longest time. And then things finally happen and I thought we’d be racing towards the finish line, but no. Things slow down again and I was back to being bored and frustrated by the two of them.

While I ultimately enjoyed but didn’t love this book, I do think it will work for a lot of people. Jenica at Firewhiskey Reader LOVES friends to lovers and absolutely adored this book! If you liked Beach Read, this books gives off a lot of the same vibes. Henry has such a unique voice that I didn’t appreciate until I read People We Meet on Vacation and noticed it, and they both have beautiful stories of growth and identity with the heroines.

I also really, really loved that this book talked about Poppy having her dream job and still being unfulfilled. I haven’t personally experienced that, but I have done a dramatic career change because of unfulfillment in my career, and I wish talking about careers like that was something I saw more of in contemporary romances. I turn to reading a lot to try things on for size and think through different issues, and I maybe would have recognized my unhappiness with my career sooner or started thinking through different options if more romances touched on this topic, rather than featuring characters who always knew what careers they wanted to do. So it was just really refreshing to see that be a topic in this book.

And of course, it’s impossible to read this and not root for Alex and Poppy to find a way to make things work when they so clearly belong together. There are a lot of great reasons why they hadn’t gotten together earlier in the book, and I really liked how Henry addressed them and didn’t just brush them off. You love to see characters recognizing therapy could really help them rather than just relying on each other to address the complicated issues they’re dealing with!

I’m just so bummed because I was really expecting to love this book, and then I…didn’t. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn’t gone in with such high expectations and had realized what type of book it was, so hopefully this review can help you gauge whether People We Meet on Vacation is the right fit for you and how likely you are to enjoy it. I really hope you love it if you decide to pick it up! Let me know in the comments whether you have plans to read it.

Oh! And be prepared for this book to make you want to travel again. I was a little caught off guard by how much I miss traveling while reading this, though that might also be because I’ve been to a lot of the places Alex and Poppy visit in this book. It was definitely bittersweet to read about!

Thanks SO MUCH to Berkley Romance for this gifted copy! This is one of the easiest five star ratings I’ve ever given. I absolutely adored Beach Read, but Emily Henry really stepped up her game with People We Meet on Vacation. It is friends to lovers and opposites attract at its absolute best. I had so many genuine barks of laughter reading while reading because Poppy and Alex have the kind of quick, quippy banter that can only be honed after years of friendship. I wish I had made note of all the hilarious one liners. There’s a sick bed scene (my personal favorite) and it is wonderful. Henry plays with the timeline of this in a way similar to what I just read in Dial A for Aunties, where we see the MCs come together through past interactions and then meet up again after being estranged in the present timeline. I do not see this very often and I really love it.

Poppy and Alex could not be more different if they tried which makes watching them fall for each other even more rewarding. They balance each other and smooth each other’s edges and make the very best team. Because of their differences, both in personality and general life plans, neither of them believe a romantic relationship could ever work between them. So, despite each of them harboring feelings for the other, they choose mutually in an unspoken pact not to act on them in order to protect their friendship. But then Croatia happens and everything changes and they are forced to confront their true feelings. Reading a slow burn between two people who already have an established relationship is just so satisfying. People We Meet on Vacation really has it all and I highly recommend it! It was the perfect companion for a week at the beach too!

I’ve been terrified to read this book, simply because things can take on a life of their own once they’re hyped up the way this has been. Luckily for me, this is not the case.
Henry has penned the ultimate vacation getaway in these pages, touching on places near and far, and more importantly, that feeling of discovery as you travel through life with your best friend.
This one has me counting down the days until school is over, and my best friend and I embark on our summer vacation road trip together, and although our trip won’t turn out like it does for Poppy and Alex, it will touch on all the same places of my heart that these two and their adventure did, and I think that’s absolutely beautiful.

I loved this! I really felt the connection between Poppy and Alex and the unbreakable friendship they built. I loved how it went back and forth between what’s happening today and what happened on previous vacations they took that lead them to where they are now. I really felt their passion and their struggles in dealing with those feelings. I loved every second of this book!

This was an absolutely wonderful story A perfect read for a time when we are unable to travel this book transports us to many different destinations. Alex and Poppy have this idyllic friendship where they've know each other since college and every year they go on a "summer trip" together. Now it's been two years since they've talked after a fallout on their last vacation, since this book is told with alternating chapters, in the present and on past trips, we have to wait to fin out just wait happened. After reaching out to each other Alex and Poppy decide to take another trip this time to Palm Springs for Alex's brother's wedding with the hope of getting their friendship back intact. Lots of things ensue after this causing lots of crying and some LOLing. I don't know about anybody else but I was so nervous for the end but Emily Henry has written another gem and I can't wait to read her next book!
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

Emily Henry is an author that everyone should be reading! She's hit both this and her debut novel out of the park and I devoured it page by page. If a book can be PERFECTION then this one is it!

Poppy and Alex are total opposites, and yet they’ve been the best of friends for years. That is until one mistake causes a rift between them. Now, two years later, Poppy is determined to mend their broken friendship by dragging Alex on one last trip in a final attempt to fix everything.

Emily Henry has clearly found her niche in writing adult contemporary romance because wow. People We Meet on Vacation has the same heartwarming, entertaining, and emotional quality found in Beach Read. The characters were smart, relatable, and delightful. The story easily captivated and I was hooked on Alex and Poppy’s journey from the first chapter.

The romance was everything. Emily Henry completely delivered on the opposites attract and friends-to-lovers tropes. One of the best parts of the book was that we were given glimpses into Alex and Poppy’s past and how their friendship (and love) grow over time. There were so many elements of the book that made this such a great read: the slow burn, the pining, the tension, the ~there’s only one bed~ trope. I adored it all.

People We Meet on Vacation was a beautifully written story full of love, friendship, and hope. The romance was absolutely perfect. If you only have time for one contemporary romance novel this year, please make it this one. You will not be disappointed.

Emily Henry has done it again! I couldn’t put this one down! I love Poppy and Alex!

Best friends despite their completely opposite personalities, these two embark on some of the most amazing vacations with one another over the course of many years until something happens that puts a full stop to it all. Told in a dual timeline format, we get to see both past and present Poppy and Alex and how their friendship started, developed, and fizzled.

Full of hilarity and vulnerability, this will they/won’t they romance will keep you guessing and hoping. I laughed and cried and that means all the gold stars for me! This is a well told slow burn romance that is worth the wait!

Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley, & Berkley Publishing Group for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.

Okay, so, like, don't hate me - but I don't get it. I want to!! I like Emily Henry's books, but something is holding me back ~loving~ them. There is no doubt that she is a talented writer, and both of her books have been easy, fun reads (not that the subject matter is always easy, but the actual *act* of reading them), but I'm missing the connection that turns this from like into LOVE.

My emotional connection/attachment aside, I did like People We Meet on Vacation, most especially the way the book was formatted. Going back and forth between what happened THEN while what is happening NOW unfolds is always a fun narrative device and Emily Henry writes it well.

(Speaking of THEN vs NOW - if you liked that plot device, definitely look up Beth O'Leary's The Road Trip! Much heavier topics and content warnings abound, but it was a stellar book!)

One last thing for People We Meet on Vacation - somebody send me on a vacation, please.

For someone who desperately needs a break from working and moving apartments and wedding planning, People We Meet on Vacation is going to have to suffice for now!

I loved it! I liked it way more than Beach Read (which I think I need to re-read). I loved Alex and Poppy in PWMOV; both are heavily flawed characters with genuine feelings. It’s pretty obvious that they both are in love with each other and it’s funny to see how each trip takes them closer or further away from each other. Poppy has my absolute dream job- who would want to be a travel writer for high end luxury vacations?

I really enjoyed the way the book was structure; half the book was the present day and half was all the previous summer vacations they took. I’ve never been to Palm Springs and even after everything that can go wrong did, I would still really like to visit. I’ve seen it a lot on House Hunters and the 60s style is just so interesting!

All in all, you can’t go wrong with @emilyhenrywrites and this is a summer must read! Thank you to @berkleypub for my netgalley copy.

I absolutely adored this! People We Meet on Vacation is a wonderful homage to When Harry Met Sally, capturing the romcom goodness of watching two unlikely people become best friends, and ultimately fall in love. This is one of the most believable friendships I've read in a romance book; while Alex and Poppy are clearly head-over-heels in love with each other in present day (not that they know it yet!), we get to watch their friendship and romance blossom over more than a decade so it still feels completely natural. The chemistry between these two - both as friends and as something more - is off the charts. While this may not satisfy readers looking for tons of steam (perhaps the only thing I wanted MORE of in this book), the sexual chemistry and emotional intimacy between these two still sizzles in a way I found immensely satisfying. Poppy's "Millennial ennui" and uncertainty about what she wants out of life resonated with me; Alex is so soft and so lovely and I may or may not have the biggest crush on a fictional character right now. This was a rollercoaster of emotion in the best way; the stakes felt so real and so serious that I couldn't help but be 110% invested in these two being happy together. If you're a fan of friends-to-lovers or opposites-attract tropes, you absolutely need to pick this up!

This is definitely the best contemporary romance book that I've read so far this year. I enjoyed it just as much as Beach Read, and I can't wait to continue reading Emily Henry's further novels.

SUMMARY
Poppy and Alex met in college at the University of Chicago as Freshman and didn't get the greatest first impressions of each other, but they find out they are from neighboring towns in Ohio. When Alex drives Poppy home for summer vacation, the two start to bond and become close friends. To maintain their friendship as they continue with their lives, they plan a vacation together to a different location every summer to coincide with Alex's teaching schedule and Poppy's travel writing job.

However two years ago something happened between the two on their trip to Croatia that put a halt in their friendship and vacations. Poppy, in an attempt to rekindle their friendship, starts up contact again. Alex and Poppy plan a trip to Palm Springs to coincide with Alex's youngest brother's wedding and to restart up their annual vacations.

OPINIONS
This clever homage to When Harry Met Sally is incredible. The characters are so well developed and likeable that you're sad to finish the book. Their chemistry is palpable and the sexual tension between the two is realistic. There's really nothing triggering about this contemporary romance WHICH I LOVE, because so many contemporary romances feel the need to include heavy topics. The heavy topic in this book is the relationship between Poppy and Alex.

I loved every minute reading this book. I will recommend it HIGHLY and plan on reading it again.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!