This is a second chance romance, kind of. Harriet and Wyn have been together forever (8 years? I don't remember, some long length of time). They are engaged but have yet to set a wedding date. Then Wyn breaks up with Harriet for seemingly no reason. She's angry, but alas... the root of the problem: they don't communicate.

For a couple that has been together for so long, I don't understand how they constantly made so many assumptions about each other. I don't understand how you have a phone call that lasts less than five minutes and that is how you end an 8 year relationship. And I don't understand, as a female, how you don't immediately turn to your best friends when that happens.

So while I like Emily Henry's writing, the plot line was tough to swallow. Her characters are usually witty and funny, and this was no exception. I think the secondary characters could have been developed a bit more, but the focus was on Harriet, which makes sense.

Overall, it was a light book with a slightly different romance plot than usual, but nothing remarkable.

Emily Henry is one of my most recommended authors--for romance lovers, for beach reads (ha), for people just getting back into reading for fun. That said, I probably wouldn't start by recommending this book. It didn't quite have the pacing or developments of her other books (which are otherwise winners), so it's hard for Happy Place to compete. If you like introspective, meditating, witty "love stories," for Grown Ups, you might find more enjoyment than I did.

Have you ever delayed sharing news because you don’t want to ruin an event or outing? Or maybe because you honestly are avoiding the drama that will come with sharing it? Sometimes it can seem easier to just pretend things are ok than it is to face the questions and reality we are avoiding. That is exactly where Win and Harriet find themselves in Emily Henry’s latest contemporary romance, Happy Place. With more tension and angst than I expected, this is another hit from the well-deservedly titled beach read queen!

Characters

Harriet “Harry” Kilpatrick is in her medical residency in the present time. She has parents who put pressure on her to go down the path she is on for her career, but Harry isn’t happy. Wyn Connor broke off their engagement about 6 months before the present timeline. He lives in Montana and the two met when he was roommates with her friend from college Sabrina.

Harry met her best friends Sabrina and Cleo in college. Sabrina was born and raised in Manhattan to parents whose marriage didn’t work out. She is engaged to attorney Parth in the present time, who is best friends with Wyn. Cleo is a painter who grew up in New Orleans and is in a relationship with Kimmy, a tattoed strawberry blond with an infectious laugh.

My Thoughts

A hallmark of Emily Henry that I’ve come to love is tension building through past and present timelines where the reader knows that something has occurred to fundamentally change the central relationship, but we don’t know what that is until we get to the big scene where the two timelines meet. Happy Place is no exception, and this was plotted and executed to perfection.

In the present, we know that Harriet and Wyn are broken up for months but haven’t told their friends. The close knit group take an annual trip together to Sabrina’s family vacation home in Maine for a decade, and the week is spent with good food, good drinks, salty coastal air, and memorable nights. When they arrive they learn two things: Sabrina’s dad is selling the cottage, and Sabrina and Parth have decided to get married on this trip. Harry and Wyn realize they can’t tell anyone about their break up and ruin the week, especially since Sabrina is so scared to get married after her parent’s unhappy marriage.

The book weaves back and forth in time, so we see Wyn and Harry meet and fall in love. Meanwhile in the present Harry is heartbroken, forced to stay in the same room with Wyn and confront all of their old feelings. The dichotomy between the two timelines is stark. Their love story is so heart-warming and it makes their current state even more sad.

This story had a mash up of tropes: friends-to-lovers, lovers-to-enemies, fake relationship, and second chance love. These all occur in the same central couple and while that seems like it would be convoluted, they actually work so well with Henry’s story telling. I usually think fake relationship is the worst trope because it rarely makes sense and seems shallow, but here because these are people who shared part of their life together, it really put a spotlight on their emotions in a highly effective way.

I often shy away from books described as “emotional” because I think people usually mean sad, and I’m too much of a softie for sad books. But emotional is exactly how I’d describe this in a good way. I wouldn’t say it is sad, but it feels raw and sort of melancholic. Harry and Wyn had a love story for the ages, but now it may be over. As they work through that, this is also a book about finding what makes you happy and taking a chance on it, even if it isn’t the thing you thought would make you happy.

Obviously with the genre you can expect the ending to be on a positive note (thank goodness!) but it didn’t come together the way I expected and I mean that as a huge compliment to Emily Henry and this story.

A beautiful and compelling story about finding our happiness in life, whatever that means.

I like Emily Henry (Beach Read was my favorite). This one seemed drawn out to me? I do like that they made the guy the one who saw a therapist etc. And I liked the friend element. But not my favorite. Loved the destination though. It would be my Happy Place too.

I didn’t really like this. It was boring and sad until the last 40 pages when truths finally started to come out.
The constant lies and miscommunications felt cheap and immature. These flat characters are in their thirties and act like they’re 14 and are embarrassed to be open with each other. It was irritating and overdone. I would’ve loved this is everyone had been honest from the start and it had been a real bonding friendship trip, instead of this gloomy trip down a sad memory lane.

I expected this happy, funny, endearing read about friends on one last vacation and a fake dating couple, and instead I got meh and deceptions. Cleo was the only interesting character, and she was hardly even in it.

This felt like it was trying to be a literary fiction romance, and it just fell so short for me. Ugh

So good, if you’re familiar with Emily Henry this will be another book of hers you’ll love. This book delves into friendships and romance and loved the balance.

The saccharine levels were off the charts! So earnest, so tooth-achingly sweet, without a whole lot of intellectual complexity. Not exactly the swoon worthy romantic journey I was hoping for.

As always, Emily Henry is a must read for me. This was a Taylor Swift song in book format, and judging from other reviews I am not the only one who feels that way.

Emily Henry books just gut-punch you in the best possible way. I spent the last quarter of the book gasping at every unfolding revelation (emotional and plot-wise) and sobbing into my Kindle over how perfectly, beautifully inevitable it all felt. There's so much to dig into here: the evolution of friendship dynamics, how our upbringings and earliest representations of love shape us, the weight of familial expectations, how our wants and needs shift as our lives mature. And of course, the romance, which ties it all together. Maybe more than any other couple in Henry's books, I felt like I knew Harry and Wyn inside out by the end of the book, which is perhaps why finishing their story was so heart-wrenching.

This book was fabulous. I'm just so so happy with it. As soon as I started it I knew it was going to be amazing, perfect even, and it truly met my expectations. Emily Henry is a genius, a banter queen, a romance goddess, a dialogue expert. I read her books and I laugh out loud. I cry. I smile. I wanna talk to everyone about even though nobody knows what's going on. I love her and her books so much.

This particular book made me so happy because of the friend group dynamics. There is just something magical about a group of adult friends spending time together and reminiscing about the past. Reliving all their memories and inside jokes. It just made me feel so nostalgic.

I absolutely loved the going back and forth between the past and present. It brought us lots of info on their relationship and what happened. Emily is big on giving us all the tiny little bits about each of them, things we don't *need* to know, but as we read, we realize it makes us know them better, understand them better, and love them too. It makes us understand why they feel the way they do for each other. That's what she does in all her books. She puts in all the details, and it makes all the difference.

Reread #1
DYING this book is so good. I just listened to an ALC and I'm still so in love, I can't wait for people to read this book. To be able to talk about it. I already can't wait for the next Emily Henry.

Okay, I was terrified to read this book. Emily Henry’s books are some of my favorites, and from the reviews I’d seen online, Happy Place has been pretty polarizing. Now that I’ve finished it, I think I get it.

If you did not enjoy the timeline structure of People We Meet on Vacation, I’m confident that Happy Place is not for you. However, there are a few more qualifiers than that. I enjoyed Happy Place because I have my own wack-a-doodle friend group that has transcended time and space, but still suffers from growing pains. Henry’s writing about that felt so earnest, and it added a lot for me. If your friend group does not suffer from these ailments, you might read this book and think “get your shit together.”

I also really appreciated her depiction of depression in a long term relationship. It’s not alway fair, and it’s not always logical, and for me, that all felt very realistic.

Is this book for everyone? Nah. It’s not Emily Henry’s most universal book. But that didn’t stop me from loving the majority of it wholeheartedly.

Absolutely loved this one!! This was my first Emily Henry book and for sure won’t be my last. It pulled out all my emotions. I laughed and cried. Wyn was the perfect book boyfriend! Overall highly recommend!

this book was not my happy place. it was super cringe and the whole setup was dumb. would not recommend!

I read this in 24 hours because I just couldn’t put it down! This is for sure my new favorite of hers.

This is a book for anyone who’s loved someone and lost them, or for someone who’s grown up but still trying to find themselves, or someone who has memories with special people in special places that you can’t seem to let go of.

It’s a laugh out loud, cry some tears, & find where and who makes up your happy places. I won’t stop thinking about this one for awhile!!

This story is the mood I'm in this year. I thought Wynn and Harriet's love for each other was
so clear and real. I love to see how their relationship evolved in the flashbacks. It was such a
real portrayal of love not being enough even when you desperately want it to be and are not
quite sure why it isn't. It spoke to me on such a personal level the way they both sabotaged
their relationship in a tragic attempt to protect it. I just really related to Harriet on such a
personal level, there was no way for me to not love this book.

This is probably my favorite of Emily Henry's novels thus far. I loved the backdrop of Maine and all the characters just seemed so realistic. I also loved the concept that a "happy place" doesn't even need to be a place at all. You can have multiple happy places and make your own happy place. I'm eagerly awaiting Emily Henry's next book.

A fun beach read. I like to think of it as bubble gum for my brain. Super cute little story, very unrealistic but that's what makes these fun and enjoyable, right? Overall, good job!

Thank you, Berkley and NetGalley, for my advance copy. All opinions are my own!

Emily Henry's signature crisp prose and witty, sharp banter shine. Wyn and Harriet were both so clearly in love and so clearly hurt by life, by the growing pains of learning about themselves when pressed against loss and growth and fear. It was an angsty, emotionally raw road to their reconciliation, but I loved seeing them finally soften and be brave, opening up and working to communicate their fears and hopes and needs as individuals and as a couple. The secondary characters were also compelling and easy to love, and I appreciated seeing their growth and the reconciliation that their friend group arrived at, as well.

Not my favorite Emily Henry book but I enjoyed it. I hate when miscommunication is the primary thing keeping people apart. but I did enjoy the friendship aspect of the book.

This was my least favorite Emily Henry book thus far, though I'm still looking forward to reading her others. I just felt like every character was obnoxious and childish.