Honestly - my favorite story from Emily Henry. I’m not a big fan of second chance romances, but she made me fall in love with Harriet & Wyn.

I absolutely loved the characters and Harriet’s development over the course of the book was *chef’s kiss*.

Emily can do no wrong in my eyes.

This book, like the other books I have read from this author, has a romance that is compelling and the characters feel like real people the reader can talk to in real life and get to know. The themes in this book was so well executed with the concept of what a happy place was and how your closest relationships factor into those happy memories.

The second chance romance doesn't feel unnatural and I didn't have a hard time believing that the two characters would have a hard time getting back together. With second chance romances, it's hard to believe the characters would get back together and there's usually a rewriting of the series of events that would've been solved so easily if they say down to talk. Especially if the reason for break up is cheating which just makes it even harder for me to personally root for the characters. But with Happy Place, there isn't a rewriting of the series of events for the characters' past but rather a gap and sort of a guessing game as to why they really broke up. There are hints and a build up to the reveal which makes everything click together and makes the resolution so satisfying. It felt like a real adult relationship with hard decisions that had to be made.

The friend group was also very well fleshed out. They had their own motivations and heartaches and they are not ignored in favour of the romance plot which makes it so much more enjoyable for me. Each mishap involving the friend group only made me gasp and worry about how it would end. The friendship between the friends actually felt real and they genuinely care for each other which is what I expect when friends are present in romance books.

This book had me crying at certain points and had me glued to my seat for hours and I highly recommend it for those that love to read women's fiction with second chance romances.

“And then I met you, and I didn’t feel so lost or aimless. Because even if there was nothing else for me, it felt like loving you was what I was made for.”

I’m debating between 3.5 and 4 stars, but I think I will settle for 4 stars because I can honestly feel the passion emily Henry was going for in this story.

ALOT better than book lovers…NOT better than beach read.

To be completely honest I feel like this kind of story would be way better done as a movie than a book in the best way possible.

I do have a few qualms I wanted to talk about so I’ll be splitting this review between my likes and dislikes.

Likes:👍
-I love the plot idea of a group of friends who grew up together have this one spot made just for them to regroup and catch up on life
-2nd chance romance makes the tension up the ROOF
-I’m so thankful the male love interest was actually in it for more than 60%
-Sabrina’s charcater trying to hold on to this friendship made her my fave
-the realism of the story and the factors that come along with have an adult life
-the meaning behind the title ‘happy place’ made me emotional
-it’s focused on the characters emotions

Dislikes:👎
- a small critique I have over Emily Henry’s writing is that you can never tell between past and present. I can tell she likes to make her stories unique and quirky compared to others, but I would just like for her to jump straight to the point. She’s never able to create “5 years ago” or just set some date of where and when it’s taking place. One chapters ur in the present and suddenly the next your in the past and it just gets it so confusing because their not far from their current age so u need to read more into the chapter to know it’s the past. Especially when you wrote in first person. This sort of time hopping is more made for third person omniscient, and it’s great and cool that the author wants to jump that line..but I think first person really does have limits.

-I really enjoyed wyn and Harriet’s characters, but it would have been better if they focused on themselves more than working on how to get themselves back together. They have their own issues they are trying to work through and I think one step at a time will get them where they want to be. Bit instead it created so much miscommunication when they could have just talked of out.

-single pov. I’m not sure if Emily Henry ever did the perspective of both her characters in her books I don’t remember…but I really think this particular book needed dual pov. Harriet’s pov was SO biased, as it’s supposed to be for first person..but it gets u so stressed out because you actually want to know what the other person is feeling instead of what the narrator is telling you. Wyn was diagnosed with depression and I think having what he was feeling in that moment when he broke up with Harriet and why he TRULY did it, and the things he claimed he did such as constantly texting her when she had his number blocked would have added more emotion.

-groveling. I loved wyn don’t get me wrong, I totally understood what he was going through, but I feel like he didn’t fight harder. Harriet wasn’t perfect and she didn’t realize some of the mistakes she did, but if wyn didn’t tell her what he was feeling she was never going to know. Instead it got her to think about what she had did to ruin the relationship which just created stress on her. There wasn’t a proper trust built between them and I think Harriet deserved him fighting harder cuz me personally would have required him on his knees.

The detailed dislikes makes it seem I hated the book, but I really didn’t😂. I loved it and thought it was so important. When u grow ur with your best friends and try to keep this friendship when ur adults it becomes so hard. I’ve been there trying to hold to something that will just never be the same and I think that’s something we will always try to ignore about ourselves.

Thanks netgalley for the arc.

Such a fun book! The characters and the relationships all felt so real, and I especially loved reading about Harriet's family and conflicting feelings about her career. Some parts felt a little slow (especially with the friend drama), but overall I had a great time reading this. Can't wait for more people to get their hands on this book!

I feel like every other book Henry writes is great, and the off books are meh. This one was a meh. So much angst, so much emoting, it was too much - making the final denouement vaguely unbelievable as far as I was concerned.

Sweet and charming, but incredibly bittersweet. I think this is the hardest romance trope to do right -- second chance romances have to carefully balance realistic reasons for your relationship to end or be in trouble with compelling reasons to reunite, and Happy Place manages to pull it off.

It's official. Emily Henry can do no wrong! The prose, the chemistry, even the side characters...perfection! I will say, this one had a slightly heavier tone than some of her previous books, but it was just as impactful and readable. A true romance queen!

Let me start off by saying that even though I love romance in many forms, this is not the type of book that I normally like. The fact that it was so unexpectedly enjoyable and engaging speaks to the author's ability to write excellent characters and surprise you with their depth and interweaving histories. I usually get bored with forced proximity/fake dating tropes unless it's like a reality TV thing, but Emily Henry has made me re-evaluate that position for sure!

The cover of Happy Place is gorgeous and was one of the things that drew me to it when I requested it on NetGalley, but it didn't prepare me for how serious some parts of the book were. I thought it was going to be a fun, but fluffy romance read- I was so very wrong. There was a lot of fun, but even more depth than I expected as the author excavated what female friendships, aging, choosing what feels right to you instead of what you should do per societal standards, and truly evaluating the efficacy and importance of romantic relationships look like in 2023. All of the characters are young, but the aging aspect specifically peered into how friendships change as one grows out of college age into adulthood where lives often go in very different directions. (Think mid-twenties to early 30s when people are settling on careers and deciding if they want kids.)

Our two main characters, Harriet (Harry) and Wyn have broken up months prior to the friend's trip they are both invited to attend with their old university besties. The problem is that they have not told anyone about the breakup, and Harriet does not have the heart to tell her friends since she is still very much grieving the loss of the relationship. As the story progresses, the two MCs are forced to explore their relationship in depth as the complexities of adult friendship also rise to the surface. Harriet is in medical school but finds that she desires a life with fewer time constraints and with more availability to do what she loves- create art. Her fear of her family's judgment, grief over her failed romantic relationship, and the stress of putting on a "good show" for her friends force Harriet to come face to face with the question that plagues many people in young adulthood: Should I do what is stable and expected of me, or should I take the risk of acting on what brings me joy?

The characters are very compelling, and even though there is plenty of fun banter among all the characters, Emily Henry does not shy away from prying back the layers of social programming and exploring how authenticity emerges when we have the bravery to face who we really are. All in all, it was not what I expected from a book with a bright (gorgeous) pink cover with a bunch of people lounging and playing on the water! Not that pink indicates a lack of depth, but on romance books, it is something I usually correlate to something like a rom-com. There was humor injected throughout the book, but I was pleasantly surprised by the author's willingness to look at life "as it is" as well. I loved everything about Happy Place and truly enjoyed the development afforded to the side characters. The ending is fully satisfying, and I can officially call myself an Emily Henry fan!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Emily Henry, and Penguin Random House- Berkley for sending me an e-ARC of Happy Place! Given how much everyone enjoyed Book Lovers last year, I think that this is going to be the next contemporary romance "it" book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for allowing me an ARC copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

One week in a nostalgic location with all of the people who know you best – including your fiancé whom no one knows you aren’t engaged to anymore. What could go wrong?

When Harriet steps off the plane in Maine, she is ready to be in her happy place. Sabrina, her best friend and college roommate, has had her and their triomate Cleo out to her family cottage every year since Harriet could remember. She is expecting relaxation and peace from the growing disdain she has for her work back in San Francisco. What she is not expecting is for her fiancé Wyn to already be at the house with a plan to keep their breakup under wraps. Armed with months of resentment, Harriet is determined not to let this, or him, ruin her annual bonding experience. As the week goes on, Harriet and Wyn are forced to reminisce about their relationship over the years. They begin to realize that for every sacrifice they made in the name of love, they only added a dagger to the others heart. When their friends start to feel the tension bleed, Harriet and Wyn must decide how far they are willing to build their walls up before everything comes crumbling down.

This book was everything that I love in a romance novel. Miscommunication, forced proximity, separate trauma/shared trauma, child of expectation, found family, teased spice. It had it all. I blazed through this because I desperately needed to know if Harriet and Wyn got their shit together and had a real conversation. As a child of expectation, I understood Harriet’s trauma of needing to do the right thing and how that bled into her requirement of being a perfect/needless partner. I was just as much in love with Sabrina/Harriet/Cleo’s love story as I was the romantic one. They found each other when they needed it most and they swore their love forever. Adult relationships are hard. I loved that Henry showed all of their imperfect vulnerabilities and how they leaned on each other to heal.

Emily Henry would write a story about a trash goblin falling in love with a dust bunny and I would find a way to get my hands on it. The way she writes about her characters elicits such familiarity that you feel a pull to their story and that is magic. To keep us turning every page for just a glimpse more into the story of others. To feel something in ourselves along the way.

Happy Place is a exes to lovers, second chance romance.

Emily Henry delivers a story of a couple who break up after almost a decade of loving each other, only to realize the flame they have is still there. There isn't one big reason the couple is no longer together, rather a cluster of reasons that were never spoken about during their time together. These ex lovers are brought back together when they're forced to spend an entire week with their closest friends. All of whom don't know the love birds have drifted apart. For the entire week, Wyn and Harriet must pretend their relationship is still close to avoid spoiling the wedding occurring at the end of the vacation. The tension is thick.

Our main character, Harriet, is very relatable. Even if you don't love her, you can't help but understand her. She comes from a difficult family dynamic, struggles with expressing herself (even with loved ones), and never learned how to fight with loved ones in a healthy manner. Harriet learned from a young age to avoid conflict, she must be an easy person to be around. As an adult, she eventually realizes how avoiding conflict her whole life has only caused strain with those closest to her.

Our love interest, Wyn, is a kind and soft soul. A rancher and furniture mender from Montana. He is the one who ended things with our mc, yet seems to be as in love as ever. Wyn ended things in a 4 minute phone call and immediately shipped Harriet all of her belongings back to her. Now that they're close together for a week long vacation before the vacation house is sold, Harriet wants to know: "why?".

I absolutely loved Wyn and Harriet's relationship because it was very real as well as their conflicts are. This story is one of inspiration, mental illness, growth, adult friendships, grief, career discomfort, etc.

Thank you, NetGalley, Emily Henry, and Berkley for an eARC.

Emily Henry books are becoming MY happy place. This has everything you would expect from a Henry novel-- romance, humor, summertime vibes and a strong sense of setting. It was a good read.
That being said, I wouldn't call this Henry's best work. The main character, Harriet, feels real enough, and I enjoy that this romance focuses on an existing relationship. But the stakes never felt high enough. It takes a long time to understand how the couple broke up, and even then it doesn't make a lot of sense. However, it did feel more true-to-life that way. Break-ups aren't always about infidelity or unhappiness with your partner, but sometimes simply reflect the struggles a person is having as an individual, which flows over and taints a relationship. I thought that felt very real, if a bit frustrating as a plot element.
My other criticism is that the cast of characters is fairly large, but most of them never feel like more than placeholders. As somebody who adores the "found family" trope, I kept waiting to feel more connected to the group of friends, but that never materialized, and because of this the climax of the book wasn't as emotionally satisfying as it could have been.
Overall, I would say this book was 3.75/5. Even Henry's lesser books are better than most others in the genre!

I don't love second chance romances, but Happy Place is an absolute gem. Henry's newest novel feels different from her previous books. It feels a bit more grown up, sadder, and grittier. The characters are so realistic and are perfectly imperfect. I loved how Happy Place explores love, friendship, identity, and place.

This one was a bit more serious than “Book Lovers”, but still brought me to tears and made me laugh all the same. I loved Emily’s look at friendship, what it means to be in love, and what happens when everything starts changing around you and you have to grasp the art of letting go. I loved all the characters. They are relatable, awkward, charming, sarcastic, hilarious, stubborn, foolish, and genuine. I loved their friendships and how they all learned and grew together. My only complaint is that I feel we didn't get enough time with the other characters and they felt a little 2 dimensional. However, I don't think it hindered the story. I lived for the past flashbacks. They really help you learn and understand their history and also allow you to truly feel their connection and chemistry. I felt like I got to know Wyn even though the book was told entirely from Harriet's perspective. Their banter and electric energy is written so well; Emily Henry knows how to make you connect to a character. I will read anything Emily Henry writes. Happy Place is some of her best work, both in the storytelling and in her writing. Her books are fun and easy to read. Thanks to Netgalley and Emily Henry and Berkley/Penguin Random House for this eArc. I can’t wait to see what Emily writes next!

Yet again Emily Henry makes me swoon and also cry. I was nervous about the idea of a second chance romance (not usually my favorite kind) but she handled Harry and Wyn's story with such skill and tenderness. I loved the little friendship world that she built and how realistic it was. The theme of alternate universes worked so well in this. I rooted for Harry and Wyn all the way through (even when I was mad at Wyn). I predict a lot of people will drop out of their residencies after reading this, and honestly good for them!

Best romance of 2023? I think so.

In both a past and present timeline, Happy Place follows our protagonist, Harriet, five months post-breakup as she’s on her way to her ‘Happy Place’ – the summer cottage in Maine with all her closest friends. Harriet plans on breaking the news to her friends once she settles in that her engagement has been called off. But, when she arrives, she is shocked to see her ex-fiancé, Wynn, at the cottage, acting as if the past five months have never happened, and they’re still the happy couple their friends know and love. After a few shocking revelations, Harriet realizes she’s going to have to put her feelings aside for the week and pretend that she and Wynn are still happily engaged for the sake of her friends. How bad could it really be anyway?

THIS BOOK! I don’t know where to start; Emily Henry keeps topping herself! Wynn is a dream, and I’m convinced Emily Henry slipped into the deepest crevices of my brain to write Harriet. I have so much to say, and every time I’ve tried to write a review, it’s been an overly excited and incohesive mess, so I am splitting my review into four parts: character, dialogue, plot, and structure.

Characters:

The most diverse cast of Emily Henry's characters thus far, all with distinctive backstories that make the characters feel real. Each character in this book is fleshed out, and you find yourself understanding on an intimate level how they make the decisions they do and how their past has shaped who they are today.

Harriet and Wynn’s struggles are both very internal, they are two characters who struggle with feeling like they are worthy of love but in two very different (but deeply relatable) ways. Harriet feels as though her value comes from what she can do for others, she is anxious and a people-pleaser, and she struggles to communicate her needs for fear of disappointing others.

Wynn views himself as average in every way possible. He feels like he is constantly disappointing others, and if he’s not, it’s because they had such little expectations of him, to begin with. He feels like he is not worth fighting for.

With this, we see many missteps in their ability to communicate their needs with one another. This is illustrated in the book and makes their relationship, fallout, and rekindling real and believable. But it also makes both characters incredibly sympathetic and relatable, and I loved watching them both overcome their struggles and insecurities with one another.

Dialogue:

The banter? *chef’s kiss*. One of Henry’s strongest skills as a writer. The dialogue is genuine, witty, and realistic. It’s reflective of natural dialogue and at no point feels unnecessarily forced.
I think it’s also skillfully used to showcase humour as a coping mechanism for Harriet.

Plot:

Like many of Henry’s other works, Happy Place resembles the plot of many 2000s romcoms (in the best way). It is well-paced and interesting. Henry uses tropes in addition to her plot, rather than centring the plot around them (which is a personal pet peeve of mine). I felt like every part of the storyline made sense and flowed naturally. I could see it playing out as if it was my own life. The friend group quarrels, the nature of the relations, the breakup, and the rekindling. It all fits very well.

Structure:

I love the past and present timeline; it sets up the story well but also adds a lot of interesting context and background to the relationship and their circle of friends. I’m curious to see how this will be received, though, because dual timelines are a hit or miss for some.

Overall, this one is definitely in the running for my favourite Emily Henry book, and I cannot wait to reread it and annotate it when it comes out. This is for the people-we-meet-on vacation-this-is-me-trying-mirrorball readers

Everyone has that one book where their heart and soul are poured out onto the pages, where the feelings you’ve thought for so long you were alone in feeling are so well-articulated and accurate that nothing and no one has ever come close to understanding and you can’t help but cry tears of relief—Happy Place was absolutely it for me. I truly don’t know how i’ve existed without Happy Place because this book whole-heartedly means everything to me. Both incredibly visceral and cathartic, EH has truly perfected her craft and found her balance with this one, creating such an incredible romance story unlike any i’ve read before while also handling and highlighting platonic love with such love and care. this book truly felt incredibly autobiographical for me, even to some extent where it, again, brought out such visceral emotions out of me to the point of catharsis. I don’t think I could ever fully spell out how much this book means to me without getting incredibly personal but i’ll leave you with this: for all the fleabags, “you’re on your own, kid”’s, people-pleasers and quiet romantics, the ones who crave a love so deep, romantic or platonic, but sometimes feel unworthy of it, those who feel a bit too much all the time, the ones who have so much love and no idea where to put it—you’re not alone and this book is here to prove it.

Friends. Happy Place hit the mark of what is like to be almost thirty, everything is changing, and you are learning how to be yourself in the world. If you love Emily Henry, you'll love this one. Plus this cover is my favorite by far.

Harriet and Wyn broke up months ago. Now they are stuck together on vacation with their four best friends, pretending it hasn't happened. A week in Bar Harbor, the two of them constantly pushed together, what is going to go wrong?

Wonderful premise, but really what makes this romance so great is the friendships. Friends that have become family. Every character is wonderful in their own way. Henry's fantastic humor and careful consideration of mental health makes this one of my favorite reading experiences. I'm always down for anything she writes but this might be my favorite so far.

Thank you to Berkley for the eARC.

Emily Henry has done it again. There’s something in every one of her books that makes me fall in love with her characters and the story. The way that she writes dialogue and banter is masterful and is just as good in this book.

I loved the premise from the moment I read the synopsis and the book did not disappoint. The relationship dynamics and tension was done in a way that made this story feel unique and original while still leaning into a well-loved and often used trope.

I will definitely be recommending it to everyone when it releases.

I really wanted to love this, Emily Henry on the cover is usually all it takes. This one did not live up to expectations, though. The characters weren't well developed and I honestly didn't care what happened to them. The friendships were once good, but the current scenes weren't enough to convince me they were worth fighting for. The ending was disappointing. I wish I had loved it.

I have loved every book I have read by Emily Henry, and this one is no different. The construction and pacing of the story keep it interesting, the setting is vivid, and the characters are fully realized. This was a book that had me staying up late to see how things could work out, and they did in the most satisfying way. Highly recommend!