*big thank you to berkley and netgalley for sending me an advanced copy!*

(4.5/5 stars)

i love emily henry books for so many reasons: travel, banter, how easy it is to assign taylor swift songs to characters, beautifully-written romances and depictions of family/home, but the biggest reason is that i see a part of myself in her female main characters in a way that i rarely get to in books, especially romances. they're whole, real people, and even though it can be hard to read sometimes, it's such a rewarding experience. harriet is one of those characters where i saw myself in her in ways that neither of us are very proud of, but i found a lot of hope for both of us in happy place.

emily henry's writing continues to blow me away: she's funny! she's deep! she can create a male lead like no one else! her use of short, descriptive sentences to set scenes throughout the flashback chapters is artful and helps the reader transition through time. it's so easy to sink into the warmth of happy place, to fall in love with new england and montana and the entire friend group, to laugh and cry more than i thought i would.

the romance between harriet and wyn broke my heart and put it back together, leaving me crying at 12:30 in the morning because i thought i could just read a bit of this book at a time without it swallowing me whole (obviously that did not work). it was painful, it was fun, it was scary and it was beautiful. not all second-chance romances work, but this one does, and it's full of dishwasher discourse, soulmate conversations, pottery and a ferris wheel. it's not my favorite trope (nor is the guy thinking he knows what's best for his partner, which was frustrating even though harriet challenged it), but if anyone can do it well, it's emily henry.

again, very very grateful to have received an ARC of this, and i can't wait for it to come out in april so we can all be in our happy place together. ❤️

playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4KdkxsqYrUYFgZ54WRnGFs

thank you so much berkley for this ARC


5/5 stars


happy place brought me to a happy place. this book is very different than any book i have ever read, but it is extremely comforting. there are a lot of elements in the story when it comes to grief and personal growth. there are gritty parts in their parts that make you laugh with glee and chapters that break your heart all over again. yhe friendship at the core of this book is one of the most beautifully written friendships i have read this year. cleo, sabrina and harriet essentially became friends in college, and really found their own family, all of them come from broken homes, and in search of finding a family they found one in one another. i think that’s absolutely beautiful, i love the romantic relationships with in the book as well. parth and sabrina have such an interesting dynamic and seeing how the relationship started versus wear it and it was really beautiful to me, i would absolutely love to read a short story about them if that ever came out. cleo and kimmy are almost complete opposites, but i think they really balance each other out very well. kimmy is one of my favorite personalities. i read in a really long time, and not just because she’s my namesake, but because she is a firecracker, and you never know what to expect with her, and i had so much fun reading every conversation that contain her because you never knew it was coming next. cleo my Black princess, i loved her. wyn, he’s just such a precious soul and he’s someone that took a while to understand, but when everything clicked, i loved him all the more. i think he is a phenomenal in-depth character that just wants to be truly seen and not dismissed and i can 100% relate to that. i’m not going to spoil anything in this book, but i will say that every page had me, and I stretched out reading it, because i never wanted it to end, i absolutely adore this book.

RUN, DON'T WALK, TO YOUR NEAREST BOOKSTORE, EMILY HENRY FANS. SHE'S DONE IT AGAIN.

This book was the nostalgia of walking into your favourite place from childhood as an adult-- that place that watched you grow up and walked you through so many stages of life.

This is Emily Henry's "Love and Other Words" moment (#IYKYK).

I have become a fast and furious fan of Emily Henry. I am invested in her characters from page 1 and don't want to put the book down until I'm done. Happy Place was my 4th Emily Henry book and I was so worried that the shine would wear off and I wouldn't be as connected to her newest book. Nothing could be further from the truth. Harriet, Sabrina and Cleo were put together as roommates their freshman year at their college in Vermont. They also found their family that first day as well. Even though the girls are different they just clicked and have been inseparable since and are like sisters. Fast forward and their group expands to include Parth and then Wyn. The group swears to keep things platonic, but that quickly changes. Harriet and Wyn fall fast and hard for each other, dating secretly for a year before coming clean to the group. Cleo finds the love of her life in Kimmy and Sabrina and Parth finally give in to their attraction. Things seem perfect, but perfect is always an illusion. Harriet and Wyn, who are engaged to be married have yet to tell the group they are no longer engaged to be married. When Cleo finds out that her father is selling their beloved summer home on the Cape the group gets together for one last trip. Harriet is ready to make excused for Wyn's absence until she arrives and he's there. Now they have to spend the week pretending they are still together so they don't ruin this last group vacation at their favorite spot. I love Emily Henry's witty dialog and how she makes you fall in love with her characters. If you are a fan of her first 3 books add this one to your list right away!

A stellar new title by the wonderful Emily Henry! Beautifully written - well-developed characters - teeming with chemistry. Not only is it a great second chance romance, but it also serves as a powerful and complex love story about friendship. Will definitely recommend to patrons!

Emily Henry has definitely found her happy place - writing a flawless romance novel. Having had the great pleasure of reading "Happy Place" in advance, I'm already waiting for the next one. Well done!

Like most of us, I love Emily Henry, and she's able to write perfect romcoms with real heart and excellent, deep characterization. I loved Harriet as a character, there was so much to admire and love about her and (even though I don't think this is necessary for a compelling/good book), she was extremely relatable. My rating is only holding it against her other books (I think Book Lovers is a perfect book), as I think the second chance romance is not necessarily my favorite trope (I'm more an enemies to lovers gal), but the book is really, really good.

Love that this book was just as much about friendship as it was love. Many readers will relate to Harriet realizing in order to live a life she loves, she'll have to get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel.

There is NO Emily Henry book that I did not love. And that statement holds true even after her newest offering. As always with all her romances, there is so much depth and character growth, and this is no different. She manages to offer something new all the time, despite the use of familiar, much-loved tropes, and this again, is a home run for Ms Henry. Deservedly 5 stars.

Emily Henry has become one of the go-to's for contemporary romance and she exceeded all expectations with "Happy Place." The characters soared off the page and her trademark chemistry sizzled, both romantically and platonically. A gem!

I really loved Henry's other three books published before this one and had such high hopes, but I ended up being a little disappointed as I felt like this book was loosely romance but would have been better categorized as chick lit/women's fiction.

Pros:
I liked the whole going back to the past for some chapters and then fast forwarding to the present for other chapters. I think it helps reveal more about the relationship especially for a second chance romance where you're seeing the couple reconnect as opposed to falling in love for the first time.
I liked the found family trope. Some books attempt it but normally only have one or two friends, but I liked that this was a group of friends who continued to maintain their friendship.
Harriet's character growth was really great. Henry has a way of writing books that make you think and this book was no different. Harriet's character growth made me feel really introspective and the ending was done really well.
Wyn's character growth was done really well considering we didn't get his POV at all. I liked how he came to terms with what he wanted in life and was able to feel comfortable in saying "this is who I am."

Cons:
This book didn't feel like a romance. While there was an HEA, the overall tone of the book was bittersweet and I felt like I was reading more about Harriet's character growth and the relationship between the friend group and less about Harriet and Wyn's reunion. The romance read as though it was secondary to the other elements that I mentioned before which, to me, makes this book more chick lit/women's fiction and not romance.
I didn't see how these characters were going to get back together until about 80ish% into the book when Harriet's professional unhappiness became really clear. In fact, I was actively rooting against Harriet and Wyn getting back together for most of the book because it simply felt like their lives were heading in completely different directions.
I understood Harriet's people pleasing nature and why she acted how she did, but it felt like this was taken to an extreme without a backstory that would warrant how far Harriet went to make people happy. Going through medical school and picking a residency for the most difficult type of doctor to become felt so extreme and while Harriet's childhood wasn't ideal, I never got the impression that her parents ever pressured her to go into medicine. It seemed like she enjoyed science growing up and her parents encouraged that so Harriet twisted it into making up for her parents' lost dreams.
It took until the end of the book for me to warm up to Sabrina's character. I feel like this is a trend in a lot of books where if the main character has a friend group one of them is really bossy for no reason. I felt like Sabrina was being super overbearing and when the big blow up happened I felt like Sabrina was completely bonkers.

Overall, this was a good book, but because it wasn't what I expected it to be with the genre classification I gave it three stars. The writing style was done well as Henry's book typically are, and the story was intriguing, but again, this simply didn't read as a romance. The main story was really the friendship and character growth of the main and secondary characters.

Wow, I don't give 5 stars often but I could not put this book down! Right from the beginning I was enthralled will Harriot and Wyn's story. They go through ups and downs but are both mature and respectful to each other and their relationship.

Yet another wonderful book from Emily Henry. I've read all of her books and this might be my favorite one yet. Harriet and Wyn are a couple that you can't help but root for and the friends they have are well-developed and a joy to read about.

I really liked one. Would be easy to recommend if you liked her other ones or second chance romance books.

LOVED! Alternating between past and present you follow the lives of a group of friends, mainly focusing on Harriet and Wyn. It all starts in college and then transitions into navigating life as working adults. A beautiful read about friendships, reminiscing on the past, family dynamics, and love interests. As a reader, you’ll see these characters through their successes and struggles as they grow up and become the people they want to be. Lastly, Emily Henry does a wonderful job tying in humor into this read.

I was very excited to get this ARC as I absolutely loved Book Lovers and recommended it to everyone I know. Unfortunately this was more like People We Meet on Vacation. The friendships and characters were all very flushed out but the actual issues keeping the romantic interests apart were extremely predictable and not real obstacles at all.

(No spoilers!)

Emily Henry just keeps writing fantastic novels. I was immediately invested in the friend group, and wanted them to all live happily ever after.

Harriet, Sabrina, and Cleo have been best friends since college. Along the way they met Parth, and his roommate Wyn, and then later Kimmy. For a decade they’ve been friends, and more — Sabrina and Parth, Cleo and Kimmy, Harriet and Wyn.

But Harriet and Wyn split up 5 months earlier. He moved home to Montana, while Harriet continues her surgery residency in San Francisco. Their friends don’t know though, and Harriet and Wyn find themselves forced to pretend they’re still together when they all meet up in Maine for a summer vacation like they all used to do in years gone by.

Charming and poignant, Happy Place is an irresistible read! Thanks to Berkley/Netgalley for the advance copy.

I love Emily Henry, and this is her at her best. A lotttt happens at the end, which felt a little less graceful than the rest of the novel, but that's the only reason this hasn't taken the top spot in my personal favs of Emily Henry's books.

Emily Henry always delivers a fun escape, which is something I appreciate more than ever lately. Her characters are always interesting and make you want to see them in a happy ending. Book Lovers is a hard act to follow, but this was a lot of fun as well!

Another great novel by Emily Henry. I really enjoyed the storyline and different relationships featured. Even though the outcome was predictable I still devoured the story and appreciated it so much.