another amazing book by emily henry! i love how the author is able to combine serious elements into her romances all the while keeping the whole thing fun.

OMG this book! I absolutely loved it! I have never been as engrossed in a friends to lovers trope as I was with the one in The People We Meet on Vacation. My heart literally ached for these characters and the pining...oh the pining! I am quite literally floored by this book. I fell so in love with both Poppy and Alex as characters, and I was so sad to see the story end. Emily Henry has a way of expressing my feelings in her writing, and it just makes me feel so seen! I loved that the friendship in this book ran so deep, and the writing just kept me engrossed from start to finish. Get this book on your pre-order list, folks, because you are going to want it! Thank you so much to the publisher and author for an advanced copy of The People We Meet on Vacation.

An absolute delight from start to finish. Henry manages to create characters that are funny and flawed and yet undeniably appealing. Readers will find it impossible not to fall in love with both Poppy and Alex, even though they're so different from one another. The whip-smart dialogue, charisma that leaps off the page, and absolute escapism that this novel about travel allows its readers even in the throes of a pandemic make it irresistible. I wish I could read it for the first time again - that's how much fun this one is.

This is not only an adorable RomCom but also a story about communication and how vital it is in all of our relationships. Emily Henry once again swept me away with real, and deep characters and issues (like loneliness) that many face in silence. I loved the progression of Alex and Jess while simultaneously learning how they fell apart. This is a wonderful book and I look forward to recommending it!

To put it simply, I love the way Emily Henry writes. Within pages you're completely drawn into the world of her characters and fully invested in their story. As someone who reads a lot (A LOT) of romance, this is a rare gift.

People We Meet on Vacation is a story about missed opportunities, getting in your own way, friends to lovers, and just really great.

Please, Emily, may I have some more?

I feared that there was no way that People We Meet on Vacation would live up to her incredible debut, Beach Read, from last year, but thankfully I was sooooo wrong! I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! Henry solidifies herself as the modern queen of the beach read!!! She’s amazingly talented and has a way of writing like you’re talking to a friend.

Told in flashbacks between current day summer trip and flashbacks of the last 15 years, Henry builds the chemistry between Poppy and Alex to the point that I was desperate for them to be together. Here’s what I loved!

🌴Friends to lovers, Opposites attract with unrequited love. It’s been loosely compared to When Harry Met Sally and I couldn’t agree more! It might be my new favorite friends to lovers romance 😱
🌴I want to be a travel writer in my next life. Why did I not think of this sooner?!?! I loved all of the trips they took and the quirky fun they had doing it for cheap!
🌴I laughed a lot. And cried a lot. It’s not a “sad” book, but man was it emotional at times. I felt so strongly for these characters and their happiness. Poppy is so much FUN and watching Alex come out of his shell when with her made my heart swell.

People We Meet on Vacation is a BOTM choice so prepare yourselves to see it everywhere - and I can honestly say it deserves every bit of hype it going to get!!! You better believe my copy is on it’s way!! Thank you to @berkleyromance for the ebook in exchange for my honest review!

When I saw Emily Henry had another book coming out this year, I knew I had to check it out! I really enjoyed Beach Read, so was expecting to love this one as well. I did like the overall storyline and romance plot, but it was such a slow burn for me. I ended up feeling bored for a good chunk in the middle, which was a bummer! I liked how it wrapped up at the end, and the alternating timelines between the present and years past, each documenting another trip Poppy and her best friend Alex take together. There was a little mystery surrounding why at the beginning of the book, in the present, they hadn't spoken for 2 years, which I enjoyed, but what was revealed as the reasoning didn't really add up to me.

Overall I liked this but it wasn't my favorite of Henry's books. I will continue reading her other books, though, and would recommend my friends check this out!

I usually enjoy Emily Henry stories and I did enjoy this one too....but it took so long for these two to recognize their love for one another that the story started to get a bit boring for me. Twelve years of oscillating between past and present. This was a slooooowwww burn.

Thank you to Berkley, Netgalley and Emily Henry for letting me read this book early. This one will be published on May 11.

This book could not have come into my life at a more perfect time. After over a year of no traveling Emily Henry took me to so many places in this book! People We Meet on Vacation is such a perfect escape. Not only did this book give me warm fuzzy memories of places I've been lucky enough to travel to, it also made me laugh out loud and reading about people falling in love is the ultimate getaway.

I don’t read a lot of rom com type books but I adored Beach Read and this new book satisfied almost the same way. There was a lot of set up and this story felt a little torturous with the length of time and mishaps involved. The flashbacks and long descriptions were interesting but sometimes felt like they were unnecessary. However, these characters are complex and likable which made it all so worth it. I will miss them!

This book started slow for me. There was a lot of angst and tension in the beginning and I didn't enjoy it until about half way through when improbable best friends Alex and Poppy go to Palm Springs and nothing seems to go right with the vacation but they discover that place doesn't matter, people do. At this point, I couldn't wait to see what happened and I raced to the end. I'm glad I stuck with this story and very much enjoyed it in the end. I give it 4 1/2 stars.

I was so excited when I got approved to read this book, since I loved Beach Read so much. This book didn’t dissapoint, it is such a cute love story. Both of the main characters (Poppy and Alex) are very likeable and their story just gets more interesting as the book progresses. There was a point in the book where Poppy got on my nerves a little bit, because she wouldn’t take the first step. Their story goes back and forth in time, which I personally love in a book. They love to travel and you get to experience all the things they have to go through to make a vacation unforgettable. Overall it is a very good read and I recommend it to anyone that enjoys romantic comedies.

Oh my goodness I adored this book! I loved it just as much as Beach Read, which was one of my favorites last year. Everything about it, from the beautiful writing to the believable characters--ah! Perfection.

This is one of those stories that is jam packed with emotion. I usually don't give recaps in my reviews, but Poppy and Alex are such a unique take on best friends to lovers with so many of my favorite tropes (there's only one bed, grump + sunshine, etc). Though I wouldn't really call Alex a grump. He's just a soft, quiet boy. Better yet, I loved being able to go on all of their past vacations with them alongside the present. The way the story was told reminded me a little bit of Love and Other Words - one of my all time favorite romances, where we don't find out why the main couple stopped being friends until the very end.

I loved how much personality Poppy had, and how even though Alex was the quieter sort, he never shamed her or made her feel bad for her exuberance. I think I kept expecting him to guilt her or decide that she's too much, but he never did. He loved her fiercely throughout the whole book, and I never questioned his feelings for her aside from the very beginning. It was actually really refreshing how gentle and loving he was.

Anyway, this is an easy five out of five stars, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for not only a pleasant, feel good escape, but with plenty of feels and depth to go alongside of it!

Do you ever read a book and feel this crushing, awful joy because you got to experience it and yet you'll never be as good a writer as its author? That's how I feel whenever I read Emily Henry. People We Meet on Vacation is a slow burn — like a decade's long slow burn — and I often felt impatient for Poppy and Alex to just shut up and kiss. I don't know that I needed to hear about every vacation they'd ever taken together during their friendship. But what a delightful pair, and what a wonderful payoff. When these two did finally collide (during a rainstorm!! Emily Henry how could you do this to me??) I swooned out loud. Henry builds tension, attraction and character growth with the finesse of a true master.

I loved Emily Henry’s, Beach Read. Unfortunately, this one just fell short. I even put it down for a few weeks & tried again. It was a light-hearted read & will definitely give you some major vacation fever. However, the entire book was the same story over & over again about their friendship/relationship; no good subplots or characters. Also, it seemed more YA than a story about 30 somethings!

I loved this book. The ending got me. When a character to can cut themselves open and share every single of their flaws and weaknesses... that's going to make me feel ALL.THE.EMOTIONS.

"You can't outrun yourself. Not your history, no your fears, not the part of yourself you're worried are wrong". HITS ME IN MY SOUL, friends.

What makes this "People We Meet On Vacation" is that it has all my favorite tropes in one book:
-- Lifelong pining
-- Opposites Attract
-- Only One Bed
-- Slow Burn
-- Top Notch Banter
-- Friends to Lovers

When reading this story, please be patient. Give grace to Henry as she spins a tale of friendship, growth, loss and reconciliation. It's a story I think so many can relate to when you are in love with your best friend. Logically, Alex and Poppy should never work. But on paper, they imperfectly perfect for each other.

Review set to go live on release date:


After reading last year’s release by this author, Beach Read, I couldn’t wait to find out if her sophomore effort in the genre would live up to my extremely high expectations. Spoiler alert: it did.

People We Meet on Vacation is kind of an ode to the tropey best friends to lovers romantic comedy movie. In her afterward, this author lists When Harry Met Sally as an inspiration and I can tell you that I didn’t even have to have her mention that because I got that sense almost immediately when Poppy and Alex first meet and definitely after their first road trip together. But don’t worry, there are other beloved tropes mixed in… opposites attract, slow burn, and “there’s only one bed, whatever shall we do?”.

Almost immediately I fell in love with each of these characters in all their weird, charming, confused glory. They had the kind of chemistry right from the start that as a romance reader you desperately desire in a love story. They meet in their freshman year in college and are so different that they don’t feel that spark of friendship, that is until after an arranged road trip back home where they connect.


"He is tall, quiet, and eager to see the library.

I’m short, loud, and hoping someone comes by and invites us to a real party.

By the time we part ways, I’m fairly confident we’ll never speak again."


This book is told by alternating chapters of the current summer vacation with those of vacations past so that readers really get that feel of why they share such a deep and abiding friendship. And why they are so afraid to let that friendship turn into more for fear of losing each other. Poppy is free-spirited, restless, and hasn’t had any desire to settle down. She loves meeting new people and has made a career of traveling around the world. A career that started by taking trips with her best friend on the shoe-string budget of two college students.

Alex is her exact opposite, a literature student who became a school teacher that lives near his family in the same small town where he and Poppy grew up. He is delightfully beta and at first, comes off as kind of repressed and up-tight. But with Poppy, he is what she calls “naked Alex”, funny and quirky and eager to roll right along with his best friend experiencing all the things. Their snarky back and forth and inside jokes were amazing and had me laughing out loud so many times.


"When we were together, though, the game didn’t even exist. The rest of the world dissolved until I believed this was how things truly were. Like I’d never been that girl who’d felt entirely alone, misunderstood, and I’d always been this one: known, loved, wholly accepted by Alex Nilsen."


These two made my heart melt. Literally, melt. As someone who married her best friend, I could 100% relate to their fear of losing their person if it didn’t work out. This book takes its readers on a journey from 12 years ago when they first meet, then all through the ups and downs of their friendship and up to the present day where they are at a breaking point and need to make a decision about what they are going to do about their complicated feelings for each other. Stay apart, maybe settle down with someone else but miss their true other half, or admit their feelings and go all-in on a once-in-a-lifetime love. The fact that Poppy and Alex love each other desperately is palpable throughout the book. You could practically feel their devotion radiating from the pages. But my favorite thing is that they feel safe and protected with each other.

The ending was beautiful and I am so thankful that this author included an epilogue. I NEEDED to see this couple making it work, and all the ups and downs and in-betweens. I also wouldn’t mind meeting them again in a future book.

I predict People We Meet on Vacation will be on my best of list at the end of the year. Emily Henry has this gorgeous, lyrical way of writing that gets to me. Once I start reading I just can’t stop, and then I get to the end want to start all over again.

Final grade- A

The best word I can use to describe this novel is "perfect." No joke, I cannot think of anything the author could have done differently to make me love this book more. The friendship between Alex and Poppy was stunning and the pining was delicious. The burn was so slow that I was DYING. But then the payoff was worth it times 1000. People We Met On Vacation had everything: humorous situations, engaging settings, witty banter, character development, intense chemistry, believable conflict and stakes, and a delectable happy ever after. Normally, I skip over long sex scenes, but the steam in this one was so emotionally charged that I read every word. I got so lost in this book that time went away from me. I both wanted to finish it in one sitting and prolong it indefinitely! It joins The Hating Game in my favorite romcoms of all time and one of the few I will read more than once.

I absolutely loved Emily Henry's last novel, Beach Read, and have been excitedly awaiting this new release! Alex and Poppy are best friends, though things have always remained purely platonic. After meeting in college, they start taking an annual trip together, always on the cheap and spontaneous.

These two couldn't be more different; Poppy, a free spirit, determined to see the world and never settle down, and Alex, who is as routined as routine can be. I enjoyed the timeline of the book- starting us off knowing that something went awry a few years ago, putting an end to their annual trips, and then taking us back one year at a time to each of their vacations.

As clues start dropping that both may have wished for their relationship to take a different turn all along, the fear of losing their friendship is all too real. I so appreciated that Poppy and Alex were both wonderfully complex, with their own vulnerabilities and imperfections which made this story so much more layered as a whole. This is a wonderful take on the best friends to lovers trope and I just enjoyed it so much. I highly recommend adding it to your summer reading list and know this will be one of my favorite contemporary romances of 2021!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my gifted copy.

This book is absolutely adorable. I love a story with good banter, and the plot weaves through twelve years of summer vacations, which is lots of fun. I loved Emily Henry's last book, Beach Read, and this book was just as enjoyable.

Poppy and Alex met at freshman orientation and had nothing in common, apart from their hometown. Poppy doesn’t expect to see Alex again, but when they end up sharing a ride home together, they start a friendship that spans years. Poppy loves to travel, and every summer she and Alex take the “summer trip,” at least until two years ago. They haven’t spoken since, but Poppy plans a new trip in hopes of reconciliation, and she and Alex embark on a new adventure and try to move past the silence of the last two years. Written in Poppy’s perspective with each chapter alternating between the present summer and each past summer trip, readers get to watch the friendship build as Poppy and Alex connect with quirky characters on their travels. Henry has written another encapsulating romance with a fun cast of characters that readers will fall in love with; this is a must read for fans of her other books.