I adored this friends to lovers contemporary romance. It gave me all the warm fuzzies without ever crossing the line into cheesy. Poppy and Alex’s relationship is explored and expanded in a way that feels more realistic than most other friends to lovers stories I’ve read. They truly were friends and lived their lives without one of them secretly pining for the other until their relationship grew into something more. They definitely always loved one another but it was an enduring love that was such a joy to read.

And if you can’t tell by the cover and title, this will be a wonderful book to read over the summer.

I raced through this in one day and was itching to get back to it whenever I had to put it down. You and Me on Vacation is the story of Poppy and Alex’s friendship since college that is largely maintained through an annual summer vacation together. Poppy is a travel writer based in New York and Alex is a teacher in Ohio. The timeline of the story is split between their present summer vacation in Palm Springs and previous vacations they have been on as Poppy tries to decipher her true feelings for Alex. Their friendship is so genuine and believable it is a joy to read and you feel like you truly get to know them both. This will make a superb holiday read when we are out of lockdown. Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC - I thoroughly enjoyed it!

You and Me on Vacation exceeded all expectations. Henry said at the start: 'This one’s for you' and I don’t know what I did to get SO SPOILT. Honestly, it was perfect.

It is about a boy and a girl who get up to all sorts of mischief together. It spans twelve years where they take vacations, exploring the world and as these things go—for every thing that goes right something also goes wrong.

I mentioned being spoilt and this had ALL the tropes. Poppy is a bright, free-spirited, hilarious wanderer and Alex is this academic, clean slash control freak with a heart of gold. If you like opposites attract this is for you, Regardless of their differences, they are so perfectly matched—their dialogue is a witty, game of table tennis you can barely keep up with.

They had a long history of friendship—it was a little bit One day (for women written by a woman). This is my kind of story, because I love people with HISTORY—there is just no way this kind of emotion can exist in a book where the leads meet there and then. This was past and present and we were barrelling towards a big event on their last trip that had caused a two year rift between Poppy and Alex.

They both had some personal hurdles and you couldn’t help but root for them individually. They had soft and precious souls, and strong family values. This had lots of important life messages, which can sometimes be corny, but here just made you think and contemplate it all.

I just don’t know how my review can do justice to the chemistry and love and happiness and connection I felt this book created. The way Poppy described her feelings was exactly how I was feeling reading it. I dreamed of it ending with all these wild declarations and it was exceptional. I was blown away, tears falling NOT READY IN ANY WAY TO LET THEM GO.

Brilliant will-they, won’t-they tale spread over a many-year friendship, The story covers many holidays in multiple countries as the two friends meet up, all while skirting round their true feelings. A family wedding and disastrous accommodation brings everything to a head.

The perfect book to take on your holidays (when we can finally get on a plane anyway!!)

This is a friends to lovers romance and one that is written beautifully between two time lines which are easy to follow with the helpful chapter headings!

Emily is one of my go to authors for a quick feel good read and one I’ll always pick up!

Poppy and Alex come from the same small town in America but don't meet up until they are in college. A friendship develops and they agree to spend summer holidays together. They are total opposites. Poppy has itchy feet and wants to see the world, Alex goes back to settle in his home town.
It's obvious that they will get together beyond friendship.
I found this a satisfying read, a good holiday romance. It was well developed with the clear chapter headings for past and present trips. Although not a challenging book it was interesting enough to satisfy a poolside session or two.

4,5 stars
The more I´ve advanced in the story, the more I´ve liked it. I´ve just adore the way the relationship between Poppy and Alex develops through all these years. When they met, they didn´t get on well, they didn´t have so much in common but a trip changed everything. During all their shared holidays, we see how their relation starts to change, they are the best Friends but things can change, can´t they? The story is full of chemistry and witty dialogues. I´ve missed Alex point of view, but I really really liked the story.

I adored this book! An uplifting story about friendship, overcoming adversity and finding love. Highly recommended!

Rating: Strong 4.5

Well! I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did.... did I say like? I meant Love!!!! Wow! I couldn't put it down and it even made me cry!!! Can you believe that? who cries over a contemporary romance book?.

This is the story of two young people: Poppy and Alex, who met in colleague and for the past 10 years have maintained their friendship by taking summer trips around the world. Of course, this is a romance book.. so basically it is a best-mates-to-lovers kind of book but it is soo more than that.

It is told from two different timelines, one in the present when Poppy is trying to reconnect with Alex and fix their friendship after what happened two years ago in Croatia... and from each of the past ten summers in which we get to know their friendship and get to fall in love with both characters.

Why is it not a 5 star? First.. the first steamy scene happens at 70%!!!!! For a while, I actually thought maybe this was a Young Adult Romance with no real steam in it! Second, I kept thinking that I have read or watched this storyline before... It reads very similar to One Day (the movie with Anna Hathaway) and I think there is a rom-com with Ryan Reynolds... can't remember.. anyway... I just think that with a simple but honest conversation the story would have had only 3 chapters.. hahah

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin General UK for providing me with an e-copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.... like always! #YouandMeonVacation #NetGalley

PS. I really don't like the US title of this book... People we meet on vacation.... that doesn't sound right...right?

PS2. I did not enjoy Beach Read (her previous book) but I'm back on board on the Emily Henry fan train!

This book about traveling and discovering the world as you connect with people is strangely such a perfect story during these uncertain and isolating times. It would seem like salt in the wound when we have spent a year of isolation with little or no travel, but it actually felt like just what I needed right now. I was transported to Poppy and Alex's adventures, and as the story progressed from humor to introspection, from travel to finding a sense of belonging, and from friendship to love, I laughed and I sighed and I felt deeply for Alex and Poppy and felt deeply for the parts of myself that identified with parts of them. A wonderful book that I will be rereading.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh what a gorgeous book this was. The chemistry between Poppy and Alex was fantastic and their friendship was perfection. This is one of those books that you just want to hug, whose characters find a way to nestle into your heart. I was so absorbed in these two and their story, and the way it all came together in the end was enough to warm even the coldest of hearts. Friends to lovers is not my favourite romance trope but oh goodness it was done so well here. Henry really allows the reader to see how Poppy and Alex’s relationship develops over time and how they slowly but surely fall in love. It’s witty, clever and engaging, and the travel stories will go a long way towards satisfying your wanderlust while stuck in lockdown. Be prepared to fall head over heels for these two 😍
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Highly recommend this one! It’s the perfect read for all you romantics out there, especially anyone who has ever hoped for a second chance. I loved it so much 💖

I think this book is exactly what I needed right now.

I loved Poppy and Alex right from the start. The will-they-won't-they drama hit just right. By the end, I had that full, slightly painful, happy heart feeling. That's when you know you've found a good book. It had some really funny moments too. Poppy and Alex were so charming individually, but the way they were together, and the way they felt about each other, made it for me.

When I got to the last page, I felt a little bereft. This may be dramatic, but I'm sad I can never experience this book for the first time again.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Emily Henry strikes gold again with her sharply funny ‘The People we meet on vacation’ which pays homage to ‘When Harry met Sally’. Only this time we have a reversal with Alex being the pedantic, dependable one, while Poppy is the more free flowing adventurous one.

Both meet on their first day of university, where Poppy teases Alex about his choice in clothing. They don’t see each other much again until their last day of first year and end up car pooling back to their neighbouring Ohio home towns.

The book then jumps between previous twelve years of summer trips and the present day as Poppy, undergoing a bit of a demotivation with her dream job as a travel writer in New York.

Her best friend advises her to remember the last time she was truly happy, which she realises was one of their shared trips - to Croatia two years previously - which lead to a rift between the two. Poppy decides she wants to convince Alex to take another trip to try and regain their friendship, which she is grieving.

Complete opposites, Poppy and Alex sparkle together. Their snappy repartee is what makes the book a joy to read. I laughed many times, especially during their first road trip when they shares their likes and dislikes. Alex opines ‘feet should be kept private’ (here here Alex!) and that songs are ruined by the saxophone.

While you can guess where the story is going, the joy in this book truly is the journey not the destination. Watching each character -particularly Poppy, scarred from her high school experience - grow through their friendship is delightful. The things we do when we’re too scared to really ask ourselves what we want and then work to get it and face the fear of rejection is a lesson we all can relate to.

Henry literally turns on the heat on these two characters to communicate with each other about the causes of their two year rift. You can feel the growing tension and anger slowly rising alongside the Palm Springs heat with a broken air conditioner.

Overall it’s a charming rom com book and definitely one you’d want to add onto your reading lists.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

It’s not often I nearly give up reading a book part way through, but I have to confess I almost did with this one. I find it hard to say exactly why but I think it was probably the way it was written and the switching backwards and forwards in time didn’t really flow as the author might have meant it to.
I also found it frustrating that two people who both appeared to love each other would not have got together properly for so many years when they did meet and go away together annually.
I did persevere and the book did flow a bit better towards the ending.

I adored Emily Henry's previous novel, Beach Read, so much that I simply had to get my hands on this one as soon as possible. And my expectations were high. Poppy and Alex have been friends for years, taking vacations together every summer, until one summer something happened. And now Poppy has decided that it's time to give their vacation tradition one final chance and maybe heal their friendship. So essentially a slow friends-to-lovers romance involving a lot of travel? Sign. Me. Up!

Unfortunately, Poppy and Alex just didn't resonate with me in the same way that Augustus and January from Beach Read did. They're generally very likeable. In a way, Poppy and Alex might actually be better-written characters than Augustus and January, but there was a small distance between me and these characters that just couldn't be bridged.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy myself. The timeline shifts every chapter from the present-day to vacations from the past, and at times it felt like I was actually there with Poppy and Alex as they went on their trips. Especially considering the current travel restrictions most people are dealing with (and will probably be dealing with for the foreseeable future), being able to "travel" through a book was just wonderful. In the chapters from the past, we see the way their friendship started, how it grew and became the central relationship in life for both of them, without a romantic component attached to it. But even when the romance started to be hinted at, their friendship never felt like it was somehow less than a romantic relationship.

Emily Henry's writing is funny and moving, and I think I will probably like whatever she brings out next.

This is my second book by the author and I will be honest and say I did not enjoy this as much as Beach Read. I found the main characters Poppy and Alex boring and one dimensional, especially Alex. They have been best friends since high school, and have for years been hiding their romantic feelings from each other. They are complete opposites but the mismatch in personalities isn’t why I didn’t buy into their romance, but more so the lack of chemistry and angst between them made it difficult to connect to them.

There’s a lot of flashbacks of past travel holidays which I found to feature way too heavily and at times took me out of the present story. I can also see why this book would be compared to ‘When Harry Met Sally’. In the first half the banter between the two was good and at times funny but by the second half it started to turn cringey.

Emily Henry is definitely a talented writer. This is a quick, light hearted read and I can see this book being a big hit particularly if you like travel + romance books.

Thank you to Penguin UK Books and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

What a wonderful feel-good rom com. This book was just what I was wanting after a long run of thriller novels. It was delightful. The characters were likeable and relatable. There were laughs and there was also tenderness and tear jerking.

A book I would whole heartedly recommend to anyone wanting a good romance.

Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to start with saying that this is my first book by the author and it didn't disappoint. I loved it!

We have one of my favorite tropes: friends to lovers, but to the next level because they haven't talked in two years. I liked the fact that we didn't know from the beginning the reason why they stopped talking, plus we got to see when they first met, their first trip together. I loved that we had the opportunity to see how they slowly realized they have feelings for each other and their relationship changed throughout the years.

It's definitely a must read, especially if you love the author's writing style and you are a fan of the friends to lovers trope.

What a fun follow-up to Beach Read, one of my favorite texts from last year. Poppy and Alex are best friends who go on a vacation each year as part of Poppy's job as a travel writer.

In this fun friends-to-lovers trope, Poppy and Alex must overcome past troubles and current issues on their vacation. Is this a "last hurrah" of a decade of vacations, or will Poppy and Alex find a way to salve some of the cracks in their friendship.

The plot structure of this piece was perfect: we got to re-live past vacations by jumping from past to present and back again. I highly recommend!

Oh my! Loved this one - the story was so cleverly told as it wove through time and the history of their relationship. Great, likeable characters - a bit predictable perhaps but I was kept guessing and who cares when you're left smiling!