Loved itThis is one of my favorite Emily Henry books. Will always recommend it. It's emotional but I would still kind of classify it as beachy read.
Review 1 of 11
Beach Read (2020)
Others: Overwhelmingly positive A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They’re polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
- ISBN:
- 9780241989524
- Length:
- 365 pages
Genres: romance
Lists: …
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Happy Place
Emily Henry
2023 · 400 pages · 64 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveA couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry. Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college-they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now-for reasons they're still not discussing-they don't. They broke up six months ago. And still haven't told their best friends. Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group's yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they'll all have together in this place. They can't stand to break their friends' hearts, and so they'll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It's a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week...in front of those who know you best?
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also romance41%On 5+ of the same lists39%3 creators loved bothPersonalize your recommendations20%You Deserve Each Other
Sarah Hogle
2020 · 368 pages · 6 reviews
Others: MixedWhen your nemesis also happens to be your fiancé, happily ever after becomes a lot more complicated in this wickedly funny, lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy debut. Naomi Westfield has the perfect fiancé: Nicholas Rose holds doors open for her, remembers her restaurant orders, and comes from the kind of upstanding society family any bride would love to be a part of. They never fight. They're preparing for their lavish wedding that's three months away. And she is miserably and utterly sick of him. Naomi wants out, but there's a catch: whoever ends the engagement will have to foot the nonrefundable wedding bill. When Naomi discovers that Nicholas, too, has been feigning contentment, the two of them go head-to-head in a battle of pranks, sabotage, and all-out emotional warfare. But with the countdown looming to the wedding that may or may not come to pass, Naomi finds her resolve slipping. Because now that they have nothing to lose, they're finally being themselves--and having fun with the last person they expect: each other.
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On 5+ of the same lists57%Also romance39%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations4%The Unhoneymooners
Christina Lauren
1934 · 432 pages · 30 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveOlive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man. Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs. Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of... lucky.
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Christina Lauren
2018 · 304 pages · 18 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveThe story of the heart can never be unwritten. Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away. But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother... only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her. Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.
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On 5+ of the same lists42%Also romance42%3 creators loved bothPersonalize your recommendations16%People We Meet On Vacation
Emily Henry
2021 · 432 pages · 36 reviews
Others: Leaning positivePoppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She's a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart--she's in New York City, and he's in their small hometown--but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven't spoken since. Poppy has everything she should want, but she's stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together--lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
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Others: Mostly positivePiper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father’s dive bar... in Washington. Piper hasn’t even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can’t do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She’s determined to show her stepfather—and the hot, grumpy local—that she’s more than a pretty face. Except it’s a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there’s an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn’t want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan—and this town full of memories—may have already caught her heart.
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Loved it
Loved itI am saying this as someone who has read all of her books, who read Beachread for the first time in 2025 and gave it five stars, would have given it six if I could.
Loved itThis is another reread that I did and I absolutely loved this.
Review 1 of 4
Loved itBeachread by Emily Henry, although I am tempted to do an Emily Henry reread of the first few books and see if these still sit as highly in my feelings, but I'm pretty sure they will.
Review 1 of 2
Loved itand I really liked the one that came before this one. I'm blanking on the name right now, but I really liked Beachread.
Review 1 of 10
NeutralBeachread is about two authors who in college were like academic rivals, and they each write quite different books. One is more romance, the other literary, and they cross paths one summer and are both struggling writing their next novel. So they decide to genre swap.
Loved itIf this happened in real life, if I found out that there are two authors out there that have like a little rivalry going on and have a little bet going that they're going to write in each other's genre, I would Oh my god, I would lose my mind over that. This is the best story to tell your grandkids.
Review 1 of 3
Loved itI feel like the dialogue just never feels boring it's always interesting what the characters are talking about and the personalities always shine through in the dialogue as well so 10 out of 10 love these books so much
Loved itthis year I read Book Lovers happy place and Beach readed all of which I absolutely loved
Loved itI love enemies to lovers this was very entertaining and again I just feel like Emily Henry writes a vacation scene very well
Review 1 of 2
Loved itI loved Beach read I rated it similarly to how I rated Book Lovers because I think in my head they are kind of on par with each other but as I've sat with it something about Beach read really touched me it really spoke to me for some reason
Loved itThen I read it this year and just had the most amazing time. I laughed, I cried.
Review 1 of 2
Loved itit is just a lovely like romantic story that is blooming and oh my goodness it really is super great
Review 1 of 3
Loved iti honestly went into this thinking you know i tend to enjoy most contemporary romance type stories but i wasn't expecting anything like fantastic but i loved this i love the characters
Loved itone of my favorites of this year for sure i don't know if it's a favorite of all time but definitely a favorite of this year very cutesy romance with some deeper like heavier themes and subject matter than you would expect from the title on the cover it's following two writers who both have writer's block they're like enemies from college and then they end up getting into a romance so it was just really cute i really like this one
Review 1 of 2
Loved itit's a rom-com but it is so much more than a rom-com because it deals with grief and family and just so many juicy good things that you don't see enough of in new adult