Let me preface this by saying I LOVE Beach Read and Book Lovers, and PWMOV is one of my least favorite books ever. I have a very tumultuous relationship with Emily Henrys books (clearly), and this one was not for me. For the people who love PWMOV and not Book Lovers/Beach Read, I honestly think you will enjoy this one.

Here is what I liked:

- Cleo and Kimmy. I wish we could just have a book of them on their little farm living their life, because they were the best part of this entire book.

- The focus on mental health and choosing what is best for you, not necessarily what everyone wants from you.

... that's about it.

Here is what I did not like:

- These characters had such shallow relationships with each other and we are supposed to believe they have been best friends for 10 years? How is it that *every* person in the friend group never shares anything about their lives with their friends?! It was actually exhausting reading over and over again about people hiding things or being scared to share their feelings. One person? Sure. But this many? No.

- This book had the same sort of build up as PWMOV, where the author is alluding to something that happened in the past and we don't learn the details towards the end. I know some people like the suspense, and this choice definitely adds tension, but for me that only works if the reveal is worth it and makes sense. When the reveal happened I was like... "that's it?" These are grown adults, they just needed to use their words and the majority of this plot never needed to happen.

- The main character starts out the book by talking to a stranger on a plane who clearly doesn't want to talk to her. I'm sorry but that made me immediately hate her from the start LOL.

- THE BANTER. How is this the same author that wrote the AMAZING banter in Book Lovers and Beach Read?! It felt so contrived and forced in Happy Place. Every joke felt like it was coming from a cringy millennial trying to be funny (this is coming from a '96 millennial lol).

- THE DIALOGUE. Whenever the characters would talk to each other it felt so unnatural. Instead of having back and forth, the characters would give like 2 page monologues before the other character would even be mentioned again. Who talks like that? The declarations were sooo dramatic and felt like inspirational speeches, not normal humans.

It seems like I enjoy every other book that Emily Henry writes, so I hope that means I will love the next one.

*Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review*

It's not exactly a departure from Emily Henry's usual formula, but Happy Place delivers a solid slow burn, a delightful celebration of everything Maine, and some good twists on the old "group of best friends" drama. Harry and Wyn keep it together, even though they're really apart, for the sake of their friends.

Holy fuksfkrglwirgkwergw.

I need a second to catch my breath because this book was next level amazing. My heart is feeling so many different emotions, I don’t think I can eloquently even begin to describe it in words. I want to cry but also laugh but also need a hug???

Y’all. Emily Henry is it. She is able to grab my heart while reading & not let it go until the veryyyyy freaking end. There is something so magical about reading her novels.

This book goes back and forth between the past & the present, and it was so well done. And the story it builds as it jumps between timelines was just right!!

FUCKKKKK I LOVE WYN. He is just so *swoony* and I just want to scream. The things he says…I literally had my jaw on the floor because they were so beautiful. How does she write such amazing men?!?!?! MEN WRITTEN BY WOMEN >>>>

I felt so fcking much for Harriet. She is trying to make something of herself, while trying to give back to her parents who seemed to have given up everything for her & her sister. I’m in the medical field and this one hits close to home for me. It was such an accurate depiction of the medical world in so many moments throughout the book. It was amazing to be able to relate to a character like that.

The overall story was amazing & so freaking heartfelt. The friendship group was next level. And each little bit of the story that we see between Wyn & Harriets, both sets of parents, the friends, etc, contributed to the overall emotions & beauty of the book. It was so raw but real. And there was so much underlying love. Sooo much. Gahhhh. Perfection.

Spice: 🌶.5

Tropes:
Second chance romance
Fake dating
Forced proximity

Emily Henry’s newest contemporary romance novel HAPPY PLACE is one of the most highly-anticipated releases of 2023, and for good reason. It is worth ALL of the hype it is receiving, and then some. This book has it all: fake dating, second-chance romance, dual timelines, forced proximity, found family, Henry’s signature banter, quick-witted and lovable characters, a costal Maine summer, cold coronas with lime, sand, salt, and late-night karaoke in the kitchen with your best friends. But it also has depth — grief, and loss, and the bittersweet pain of accepting the changing shape of relationships.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple for over a decade. And as far as everyone knows, they still are. Except — the college sweethearts broke up five months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone. Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom on their friend group’s annual Maine trip — back in their “happy place,” feeling anything but happy. And then Sabrina drops the bomb: the cottage is being put up for sale at the end of the year, which takes breaking the news (and potentially ruining their last trip together) completely off the table. But after years of being in love, it shouldn’t *that* hard to fake it for one week… should it?

HAPPY PLACE is a romance novel at its core. But it’s really so much more than that. It’s a story about the fear of being really, truly known and it still not being enough. It’s about learning to trust yourself and speaking your truth, even when it’s messy or uncomfortable or confusing. It’s about holding on too tight, or not tight enough, and learning to tell the difference. And it’s about allowing your people to see you, know you, and love you.

There’s a saying in librarianship that there is a “right” book for the “right” person at the “right” time. If we’re lucky (and good at our jobs), we can get *that* book into your hands exactly when you need it most. This was that book for me.

Thank you to @berkleypub and @netgalley for the eARC. HAPPY PLACE drops on April 25th. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you. In the meantime, I’ll be venmoing @emilyhenrywrites the going rate of about five therapy sessions.

The screaming, crying and throwing up have subsided after the initial shock of being one of the many who received an advance copy of this beautiful book! It took me a minute after I finish to sit down to write this because I was still digesting what I read.

Thank you so much to Emily Henry, Berkley Romance & NetGalley for this opportunity to read an advance copy of this book!

I slacked on my Emily Henry reads but quickly caught myself up in 2022 and was ready to go for this book even prior to having access and I didn't think she could top herself but she continuously do so.

I'll be honest when I started reading this, I wasn't sure how I was feeling? The beginnings of books are usually rough for me as it is setting the stage and getting use to the format. And that was the case but after a few chapters - I was all in and couldn't get enough.

The format of this is both past and present. Harriet & Wyn who broke up after ten years together are now forced to be on vacation together for their annual summer trip with their friends. They haven't seen each other in months. But no one knows that they broke up & they are forced to pretend that they are still together. The chapters displaying the past are deemed Happy Place, indicating happier times in her life. We see how Harriet's relationship with Wyn begins and how it develops throughout the book. The present is appropriately titled Real Life.

"There's no one else."

There has not been an Emily Henry book boyfriend that I haven't loved. And Wyn Connor is no exception. He also may have taken the place of Charlie who was the one on top after reading Book Lovers. His love for Harriet was so strong. I can't even begin to describe how many times I put my book down and shook my head at the swooniest that Wyn oozed off the pages. He was not perfect and that is what made him even better.

"My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing each other so well you don't need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud; noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now."

While this relationship takes up a bulk of the book, the other piece of this is the importance of friendship and the hardship that friends go through as they age. When we meet our friends at one age and then 10 plus years go by, you are not the same person as you were at the start and your friends are also not the same person. I love how Emily tested Harriet, Cleo and Sabrina's friendship and made them communicate when that clearly was not happening in the recent years.

"I'd do anything to go back to that happy place, outside of time, where nothing from real life can touch us."

Words have escaped me to sum up my thoughts but I will say that Emily Henry will continue to be an auto buy, must read and the bar she has set is so high. She has a way to not only to write romance but also real life scenarios such as parental death, friendships, aging parents. I am looking forward to doing a re-read of this via audio in the spring.

I think fans of Henry will love this book and fall in love with all the characters.

EH never lets me down! I really enjoyed this second chance, fake dating, forced proximity romance. The cast of friends was an added delight!

We follow Harriet, whose friends are her family. She met Sabrina and Cleo in college, and over the years their trio expanded to include Parth, Wyn, and Kimmy. For years, they’ve come together at Sabrina’s family’s cottage in Maine for the Lobster Fest, and this year is no different–except everything is different. Harriet is dreading having to tell her friends that she and Wyn broke off their engagement, but she’s shocked when Wyn shows up at the cottage when he wasn’t supposed to, and even more shocked when Sabrina and Parth announce that they’re getting married at the end of the week. Not wanting to disturb the group’s atmosphere, she and Wyn will pretend to still be together, and she’ll have to pretend he didn’t shatter her heart and that she’s not still in love with him.
I cried throughout the majority of this book; I won’t lie. There’s just so much emotion, and if I were Harriet I would be blubbering and crying all the damn time. Peppered into Lobster Fest week are flashbacks to Harriet’s past and how she met these five people who are her chosen family as well as her past relationship with Wyn. I feel like these flashbacks were done much better than People We Meet on Vacation, which I didn’t dislike but remains my least favorite of her books. PWMoV teased the Croatia trip for too long, and then when we actually found out what happened in Croatia, it felt like a let down. I felt like we got more tiny details in Happy Place that led us to start clueing together why Harriet and Wyn broke up, and the full reveal happened earlier in the book than PWMoV, which worked really well.
The characters all felt fleshed-out and more than just side characters, which I really appreciated. There were maybe one or two characters of the six that felt a bit flatter than the others, but they were all still distinct and enjoyable.
Lastly, Happy Place re-introduced me to an old favorite hyperfixation song: Before the Storm by the Jonas Brothers, feat. Miley Cyrus, which is a breakup song I cried to in middle school and now again 14 years later. For that alone, I would give it 5/5 stars, but it’s also just a great book with a lot of emotion. I’d say it’s not as steamy as her other books, but it’s still an open door romance!

Quick read. Didn't like it as much as Book Lovers. The characters were a little bland, but it had a nice ending.

this review will be chaotic and have absolutely no coherency so prepare yourself now.
beautiful. stunning, flawless. perfect. a million other adjectives.
emily henry is one of my all time favorite authors and happy place did not disappoint. second chance exes to lovers with fake dating? one bed trope? with a quirky small town setting?
every moment of this book was fantastic. i read it so quickly and wish there were 100 more pages of harriet and wyn.
this book also has fantastic mental health representation!!!
favorite quotes (that don't spoil anything i promise)
- "I stuff my hands in my pockets. Very natural. Just a girl with her fists in her tiny, useless women's shorts pockets"
- "You don't date your friend? Who do you date, Wyn? Enemies? Strangers? Malevolent spirits who died in your apartment building?"
- "Did you suffer some kind of coffee-table-book related trauma in the last five months?"
- "Just because he's a pilot doens't mean he's not a ghost
- "That's how they decide who gets into medical school. You stand in front of a committee of doctors and count as high as you can."

Yay! Emily Henry is back on her game with Happy Place. Really enjoyed the long time friend group dynamic, Maine setting, and the romance felt fairly authentic as well. Will definitely recommend.

Once again readers are gifted with a novel of dynamic and relatable characters, almost lyrical prose, and a couple you root for from the get-go. Happy Place introduces a long-time friend group working through its evolution as all involved grow and change as people hit the beginnings of middle age. The story is centered around Harriet and Wyn who are the perfect couple...until they're not. I genuinely appreciate Emily Henry's portrayal of depression in its different iterations, that not all paths to happily ever after are easy (and sometimes a step back is warranted), and that the family we choose can still be messy.

Pre-order, be ready to laugh, cry, and reflect. I demolished this book in a day because Emily Henry delivered another winner!

NetGalley provided the advanced copy, opinions are 100% my own.

I was SO excited to be reading another Emily Henry book! This one is a second chance romance- which actually aren't my favorite. BUT, leave it to Emily Henry to have me really enjoy her version of the trope. Harriet and Wyn have been a couple since college and their friend group expects them to still be together. Sadly, they've grown apart so have broken up. I immediately shipped them and wanted them back together. You could FEEL their love for each other still. They fake being together to appease the friends but of course there are real feelings still there. This one was a quick and passionate read with many ups and downs. Another page turner and highly enjoyable and engaging.

I really wanted to love this book. Emily Henry is one of my absolute favorite authors, but this book missed the mark for me. I will start with the things I liked. I think her writing is wonderful, as usual. I liked how she wove in the discussion of mental health and medical treatment of depression. I liked the chemistry between Harriet and Wyn, I thought their actual romantic relationship was believable.
Here was what I did not like. As someone who is in the healthcare field, it was hard to suspend my disbelief and believe that Harriet would 1) go into Neurosurgery because that’s what she thought people wanted her to do and 2) would give up on the career she spent years of her life working toward and put hundreds of thousands of dollars toward go go and become a potter in Montana. I also found Sabrina to be a bit overbearing and that her actions actually hurt the story line.
Overall, this was an okay read, I would recommend it to people who do not work in the field of healthcare who could overlook some of the issues with Harriet’s character arc.

A beach house full of memories, a trip with best friends, and one last chance to be with the man of your dreams? Emily Henry brings the heat again in her latest -- the perfect summer read for any hopeless romantic.

4.75⭐️- emily henry does it again! i loved the concept of this book & the characters as well as the depression rep. this was so good and i highly recommend especially if you’re an emily henry fan! a super fun read especially for summer

I alway enjoy Emily Henry and her newest does not disappoint. Happy Place is full of witty banter and a fun read. It is also full of late twenties angst, set in a gorgeous town, and has scenes in a book shop and coffee shop- similar to Book Lovers. If you are a fan you will enjoy!

I really, really enjoyed this ARC of Happy Place. The story is just lovely, with six friends from high school/college getting together for one last hurrah at a special house before it is sold. We don't find out until near the end of the book who-knew-what-about-whom, and that was a nice surprise. The main couple, Harriet and Wyn, just stole my heart and I rooted for them from the outset.

This book really kept me reading…interesting, loveable characters you really root for, cozy settings, some laughs and plenty of moments to tug at the heartstrings. I’ll definitely be recommending this to lots of customers this summer!

A tight-knit group of friends vacation together for one last time at their favorite vacation spot in this latest contemporary romance by Emily Henry. I'm a big fan of Emily Henry's book's so when I saw this one pop up on NetGalley I was pretty excited! For the most part, I wasn't disappointed.
In this book, 6 friends are vacationing at a family member's vacation house for one last time before it's sold off. The group of friends had been best friends in college but now that they've moved on with their lives, things between them have begun to change. The biggest change is that two of the friends- Harry and Wyn- have broken up, but haven't told anyone yet. They're forced to play nice and act like they're still together so that they don't ruin the vacation fun.
As expected from an Emily Henry book, there's romance, drama, and humor in this book. However, there was also a ton of angst. I expected some, since we know that the two main characters are no longer together going into the story, but she really leaned heavily on it for this book, making it a bit of a downer. In addition to that, just as friendships change as life circumstances change and people grow older, the friend group drama is also full of angst.
In the end, it was still an enjoyable and well-written read, and it did get touching at moments. I was rooting for the friend group to stay together and for Harry and Wyn to get back together throughout the story. I just wish that, for a book with "happy" in the title, the book had been a bit happier. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 since this was still a good book even though it wasn't my favorite Emily Henry book.

I want to preface this review by saying that if you go into this expecting that signature Emily Henry rom-com style, you're going to get it. This book has a cute romance, a really fantastic group of side characters, a great balance of light and hard topics, and a great setting that you can sort of get lost in. It's Emily Henry's formula and it will work for a lot of people. Unfortunately, it wasn't my perfect read.

So this book follows our main character, Harriet, who is meeting up with all of her best friends from college for their annual summer trip. She hasn't seen anything in several months and the trip is long overdue. Unfortunately, she and her boyfriend (another member of the friend group) have recently broken up and have not told their friends about it yet. This leads to a week of them having to pretend to still be a couple for the sake of the trip and their friends, which causes some incredibly awkward tension. It's second-chance romance at its finest.

My main problem with this book is that it is dripping with miscommunication. That is basically the foundation of every single problem this book has. Between Harriet and Wyn, between Harriet and her friends, between Harriet and her parents. I knew that it was going to be a less than ideal read when, 25% of the way into the book, I was screaming for these people to just sit down and have an adult conversation. 99% of all the problems could have been solved if these people just talked to each other and were honest about what was going on and how they were all feeling. It was so hard to keep reading this book knowing that one adult conversation would solve everything.

My other main issue with it was the main character seemed to have basically no agency in her own life and it takes way too long for her to come to terms with that. I get parental and societal pressure, trust me. But Harriet just let everything happen to her and never reacted in any real human way. Also, I don't necessarily feel like I got to know any of the characters one any kind of deep level other than how important this friendship group is to them. It left a lot to be desired on the character development front. And it really felt like there was a missed opportunity to have a much deeper conversation about mental health and grief and the toll it takes on our lives. Overall, I just wanted so much more from this book.

I still love Emily Henry and I will continue to read her books. But unfortunately, this was my least favorite so far. It just had so much more potential and it didn't live up to it for me.