Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for this ARC!

This book was amazing. It is the perfect summer romance about best friends who drifted apart after an incident that happened on their annual vacation two summers ago. Poppy and Alex decide to travel together again in hopes of fixing their relationship after the falling out that kept them from talking to each other for years. They are opposites with undeniable chemistry and I loved both of them so much. The chapters alternate between present day and flashbacks to previous summer vacations that Poppy and Alex took together. I don’t usually like flashbacks, but in this book, they were my favorite part. I loved getting to see the relationship progress between Alex and Poppy since meeting ten years ago.

I absolutely loved this book. If you liked Beach Read, you will love People We Meet on Vacation. This was one of the best books I’ve read this year. 5 stars!

What a sweet, fun, romcom read! I enjoyed this one and it was a perfect lighthearted, entertaining and fun read between more serious books. I loved the writing style and the book flowed well. Perfect reading for a sunny weekend at the beach or pool!

I think this book officially just took the spot as my favorite romance book. I loved every single thing about this book. Alex and Poppy were so adorable and their friendship was perfection. I am usually not a fan of friends to lovers romance, but Henry knows how to write a flawless romance book.

Poppy and Alex have been friends for 10+ years, they met during the first week of college and even though it was a rough start they became best friends. They decided every summer they would go on vacation together. People We Meet On Vacation alternates between past vacations that they have been on and the present vacation. I loved reading about the past vacations and seeing how Poppy and Alex became best friends to begin with. The fact that they are polar opposites, but yet just genuinely love being together was so cute. I usually don’t like friends to lovers because we never get to see how they became friends; it is more of we know their friends and now they like each other. Not in this book, we see exactly why they are best friends and get to know all about their past ten vacations together.

Right from the beginning I could so see them being a couple and was rooting for them to finally admit that they loved each other the entire book. They are just so adorable I couldn’t stop smiling literally the entire time I was reading. I could go on and on about why this book is perfection, but that could be days of me talking. I just really think Henry knows how to write relatable characters, set the mood, and make you totally intrigued with the romance.

Did I love this book? Yes yes I did I laughed, I cried, I swooned I was completely in love with Poppy and Alex their connection and the angst was so good. But here’s why it lost a star from me. I felt like the middle part dragged A LOT I probably could’ve gone with out 2 or 3 summers because it got a bit repetitive and frustrating. That being said I truly loved this book it was so much better then beach read and was just an amazingly sweet romance I highly recommend!

This was a wonderful book to read. It was my sweet spot of romance, figuring out life and traveling around the world. It felt like this book was written for me!

Poppy and Alex have been best friends and travel buddies since college. She lives in New York and he lives in their hometown in Ohio. She’s more free spirited, he’s more reserved and cautious. Every summer they travel together, sometimes on a shoestring budget and sometimes when her company pays for it.

Two years ago, they ruined everything and haven’t spoken since. Poppy realizes the last time she was truly happy was when she was with Alex. She decides to book them a trip to Palm Springs to lay it all out on the table to make it right. She has one week to fix everything and hopefully get their friendship back to where it used to be. But can it ever go back once you’ve crossed the line?

I loved this book because Poppy was very much like me in my early 20’s. Like Poppy, I had wanderlust and traveled a lot. I also had a hard time committing and putting down roots, until I met my husband. I understood Poppy and I understood Alex’s point of view too. They were both so likable yet infuriating at times. Their story was sweet and very satisfying.


Thank you to @berkley and @netgalley for providing me the early copy to read.

This book is absolutely GLORIOUS. I don’t know how to explain how much I loved this book. 5 stars isn’t enough, 7, 10, 20 stars, the entire galaxy is this book!

Poppy and Alex are just friends that live in different cities but once a year reunite for a summer vacation. This story is told between dual timelines, past trips and the present, and it’s just enough chemistry, fun, and swoon to keep the pages turning for me. A lot of times these dual timelines are annoying, but this felt so right to me. Every past trip added to the present timeline and build a beautiful story.

I absolutely loved it.

It had that same kind of angst as a second chance romance and also swoon of people falling in love for the first time. Has anything so perfect ever been written?! I’m head of heels for this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkeley for the ARC!

Poppy is living the life she has always dreamed of – living in NYC with her dream job writing for a popular travel magazine that takes her all over the world. She has everything she has ever wanted. So why isn’t she happy? To get that spark back, she reconnects with her old friend Alex to embark on one of their memorable summer trips. So what if they haven’t talked in two years? The vacation will be perfect….right?

Emily Henry’s Beach Read was my favorite rom-com of 2020, so I was extremely excited to see that she was coming out with a new book in 2021. People We Meet on Vacation is a friends-to-lovers romance, with two MCs who are really struggling to get on the same page. The book was light and fluffy, but there were some darker elements, especially when Poppy discussed the bullying in her past and Alex losing his mom at such a young age. However, this is the perfect book for sitting on a beach or relaxing by the pool.

I don’t want to give too much away, but that moment when readers realize the meaning of the title was just perfect. The tie-in and ending was so well done! There was also a Beach Read Easter egg for anyone paying close attention. People We Meet on Vacation didn’t quite live up to Beach Read, but is still a strong addition to the rom-com genre. This book should definitely be on your summer reads list. 4.25 stars.

I received a free digital ARC from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review.

Like many of you I loved Beach Read last year and was so excited to jump into Emily Henry’s latest.

I don’t usually love friends to lovers tropes but in this case I have become a convert. In this case the friendship was the highlight and driving force of this love story. Throw in some close proximity shenanigans, slow burn, missed close calls and the incredible intimacy of really knowing someone through and through.

Alex and Poppy are one of my fave pairings. Their oppositeness was what made them so endearing, they nudged one another, without being overbearing, out of their own comfort zones. Alex made Poppy more grounded well she gave him the freedom to let go and lose a bit of self control.

This book also takes you on an adventure to some new places and whether you are well traveled or not it’s fun to step outside of ourselves for a little while and this book delivers.

This is a slow burn, that jumps time lines and draws us deep into a friendship that inevitably had to burst at the seems, I loved seeing Alex and Poppy fall apart and then fall together.

Synopsis:

“Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
...”
Review:
A very cute and very relatable take on the friends to lovers trope !
I need to confess right from the start that I absolutely loved Beach Read last year and was excited to read this one now.
I liked the structure of this books a lot, going through the past summer trips the two main characters Poppy and Alex had spent together interspersed with bits of the current summer to see how the characters have grown up from college freshmen to 30year olds and the difficulties both had to overcome and their own shortcomings and the adjusting of visions that had to happen for them to have a chance as a couple. The emotional development and growing self awareness of the main characters was so well written!
I loved being along for the ride and I loved visiting (by book) all the different vacation spots mentioned, especially since real travel has been so limited. This is a fun and quick read that I definitely recommend !
Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for providing me with an ARC in exchange fir an honest review.

Thank you to @berkleyromance for a copy of the book. Wow!! I am pretty sure this will be one of my favorite books of 2021!! Emily Henry is so masterful at story telling. I love watching Poppy and Alex grow from awkward college students to who they have become. This was such a great friends to lovers, opposite attracts story. I was hooked from the first page and love the slow burn of the story. I love how the backstory really leads you to the present and are just waiting for it all to come together.

*ARC provided by NetGalley

This is the perfect beach read. Alex and Poppy are unlikely friends who over the years and many summer trips turn into best friends until 2 years ago when they stop talking. Now they are about to take another summer trip. You can't help but feel like you know the characters and are rooting for them the whole time.

I picked up People We Meet on Vacation thinking I would read a few chapters before bed and was so thoroughly pulled into Alex and Poppy's story that I didn't put it down until I was finished (in the wee hours of the morning). It was absolutely worth it though and I am still stunned by how utterly captivating and incredible this book is.

People We Meet on Vacation was such a beautiful and heartfelt opposites attract, friends to lovers, second chance-ish, slooooooow burn romance all rolled into one. It was so well written and the banter and dialogue was phenomenal. The story is told from Poppy's POV and it unfolded in such an organic way, alternating between the past and present, to form this beautiful patchwork quilt of friendship and love. A quilt that is so well loved and worn that it's threadbare in places, and yet wonderfully thick and full of all the memories and comforts of home. The buildup between Alex and Poppy was both a sweet torture and exactly right. Emily Henry captured that ebb and flow so well and balanced all the emotions, highs, and lows, perfectly. A fantastic 5 star read from start to finish. You don't want to miss this one!

CW: death of parent (childbirth related), bullying, grief, marijuana use

*I voluntarily read an advance review copy of this book*

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry is an entertaining and sweet romance about two best friends.

I personally found it so refreshing that People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry shows life pre-pandemic—one full of travel and exploration. As we are hopefully rounding a corner and life becomes back to normal, it’s a good reminder of the joy of travel. Overall, this is such a refreshing and fun read.

You know that this is a love story so you have an idea of how it ends but the joy of these stories is reading how they eventually come together.

This story is as refreshing as fresh margarita on the beach. I highly recommend you add this one to your list, especially if you’ve been reading more heavy type stories.

Beach Read was one of my favorite books of last year, and I was SO excited to dive into this one and have more Emily Henry in my life. I went in with zero expectations and was immediately surprised to see it was a friends to lovers trope -- I tend to prefer enemies to lovers (a la Beach Read and The Ex Talk). I ended up liking this book a lot more than I was expecting to. With all romance, you expect the couple to get together in the end, but this book is so much more nuanced than that and went a lot deeper! This book is first and foremost about self discovery and self love. We don’t have the capacity to love others in the way they deserve if we’re not sure what we want and who we are first. This book really pulled on the heart strings in a way I wasn’t expecting and I definitely recommend it.

Things I loved:
- POPPY! I immediately loved Poppy as the main character - she’s just got so much personality! She’s wildly funny, spunky, lovable, self deprecating, smart, driven, and lost. I laughed out loud so many times.
- Poppy and Alex’s relationship! They are so cute together (and his backstory is so heartwrenching!).
- Swapna: Okay, I ended up really loving Poppy’s boss and thought some of the lessons she taught her were awesome! I’m not allowed to quote since this is an ARC, but there’s one point where Poppy apologizes for being sick and the way handles that situation and empowers Poppy was so wonderful, I think I shouted “YES!” out loud.
- Strong Themes: Some themes I really connected with and appreciated as I was reading include: the complicated feelings you have about your family (how you can be embarrassed by them and also fiercely protective at the same time), achieving your goals (what happens after you achieve them?), loneliness and how even seemingly confident and extroverted people can be very lonely (I loved Alex and Poppy feeling the same kind of weird, it melted my heart), and conformity (Poppy is so confidently herself on the outside but on the inside is full of doubt and wonders if it would have been easier all these years to just blend in and not make herself a target).

Things I didn’t love:
- The reason I took off one star is that it didn’t shift gears and make you realize it’s more than the romance until about 70% of the way through, and I just wasn’t really sure where it was going until then.
- Also, the time hopping is a little annoying at times - some of the backstory is nice, but other times I just wanted to be in the present.

Overall, I definitely recommend this one and can't wait to see what everyone thinks!

Clearly, Emily Henry has some serious talent in the romance writer category. She knows how to make me fall in love with the characters and their stories. I'm really impressed with her writing style overall. It's captivating and easy.

Although the story is about the relationship between Alex and Poppy, I saw Alex as a supporting character to Poppy. She was delightful and relatable in every way, but I fell in love with the way Alex embraced her. Their level of trust and acceptance was inspiring. 

This plotline is the epitome of the friends to lovers trope. The tension is clear and the excitement from the time it finally breaks is so satisfying. I really appreciated the playful banter and humor between these two friends.

Much like Beach Read, don't be deceived by the title. There is so much to this story and it's not just a fluff read. There is a lot of emotion and deep conversation throughout the book. 

Definitely give this one a chance if you're looking for a romance book that will also let you travel the world.

Another fun one from Emily Henry - friends-to-lovers, happily-ever-after, reconciling some past insecurities.

Look, I'm a sucker for a good friends-to-lovers romance, but sometimes a book just tackles this trope so damn well, I'm left a little breathless.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry left me a little breathless.

There were times when Poppy and Alex were so insanely idiotic, I just wanted to reach into the pages and shake them a little and then smoosh their faces together, because if they'd just talked, their lives together could have started so much sooner.

But idiocy aside, I loved their relationship, their deep history (revealed to us in wonderful flashback chapters of their previous summer vacations), and the way they can fall so easily back into their rhythm once reunited, despite the awkwardness of how they left things.

Plus, the slow reveals of all that Alex and Poppy have shared, and the many ways he has been showing his love for her over the years together, even when she didn't let herself see it for what it really was. I don't want to spoil anything, but gah, some of those gestures -- a very big one in particular -- just gutted me, in the best way possible.

This book had it all for me: a sweeping romance, steamy chemistry, and the escapism of a travel-centric story.

What can I say that hasn't been said about Emily Henry?

This book y'all. This book.

I remember finding booksta a little after Beach Read came out. I judged it hard, because I was a pretentious book reader at the time, but I did end up reading it. And I fell deeply in love with it. I was so excited for this, to see what else Emily Henry could do after Beach Read and shit. She did it.

People We Meet On Vacation follows best friends Poppy and Alex as the try to navigate back a friendship that fell apart 2 years ago, after a decade of friendship and best friend trips together. They go on one last vacation to try to salvage their friendship, and I think we know where the rest leads us.

This book. This book. It's deep, swoony, not really steamy outside of a page and it packs a punch. If you fell hard for Gus in Beach Read, Alex takes over the place in your heart where Gus left off. Alex's quirks and ultimate declaration of love was pure perfection and I went back and reread it multiple times.

I'm usually not a fan of friends to lovers, but this book did it. I'm also usually not a fan of really slow burns and admittedly I got to about 50% and needed more. But when it happened, it happened and I totally forgot about the slow burn.

My only complaint? I wish I had more Alex and Poppy!

Ok. So i loved Beach Read from Emily Henry, and I also love all of her YA stuff as well. I didn't think I could like this author more but I can. People we meet on vacation is and amazing, heartbreaking story with characters that i just fell so hard for! In a time where I can't travel, I loved living vicariously through Alex and Poppy’s summer trips. This is a great friends to lovers story that will be the perfect summer read!!

Alex and Poppy are best friends, even though they couldn't be more different. Alex is a high school teacher who still lives in their hometown and he likes order and things just so, while, Poppy is a travel writer who loves new experiences, new people, and surprises. However, they make it work and go on a vacation together every summer...that is until a summer trip two year ago ruined everything.

Fast forward two years of not speaking, Poppy has hit a rut. She's where she wants to be professionally...but something is missing. At the suggestion of a friend, Poppy tries to think of the last time she was happy and her mind flits back to that last summer with Alex. So, what does she do? She takes a chance. He says yes. And, well the rest? You'll have a to read and see.

What could have been better?
This was a little slow to me at times, and I feel like some of the past perspectives could have been shortened. However, the slowness I felt may just be particular to the friendship to lovers trope and the complications that go with it.

What I loved?

I loved Alex and Poppy. They were two amazing characters that were developed beautifully. I would want to be friends with them.

I loved their whole relationship (friendship and romance). The two of them and their relationship to each other was so flushed out that when they got together I think I may have been just excited, if not more excited than they were. They were so sweet with each other, but their banter and quick wit was also on point, and them together just made me smile.

I loved Alex. Alex needs a line all to myself because he is SO swoon-worthy and I loved every last part of him, quirks and all.

I loved how much this book made my heart happy. Sometimes, you just need a book to make you smile and this was one of those reads.

If you want a book that's a slow-burn friends to lovers novel? A book that will make you laugh? A book that will make you swoon and add another "book boyfriend" to your ever growing list? I'd definitely add this one to your list.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for this E-Arc in exchange for an honest review.