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Here I go again, saying how much I enjoy Emily Henry. But it’s true. I’ve loved all of her books, whether they’re YA or adult fiction, except one she co-wrote with another author (Hello Girls). Her more recent work has been adult fiction, romance stories, rather than the somewhat magical-reality and romance that featured in her young adult books.
Last year she gave us Beach Read, what sounds like it would be a perfect “beach read” but also delves deeply and seriously into the potential lovers’ lives. This summer, we get another romance novel that sounds beach-ready because of the “vacation” part of the name. It is beach-ready but has nice solid underpinnings.
Poppy is a writer who works for a high-end travel magazine. She started out in her career as a blogger, showing how to take great trips on a budget. And many of those she took with her best friend, Alex. For 10 summers, they spent a week together on the cheap. Two summers ago, though, things went wrong, and they haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has loved her job and traveling, but she’s been in a slump. When a friend asks her the last time she was happy, she knows it was on that last trip with Alex. So she texts him and asks him to take another vacation. And they end up together in Palm Springs, the desert, in the blazing summer heat. And everything goes wrong.
Poppy just wants them to be happy, to have their friendship the way it was. But it may not be possible, because there may have been more to it all along.
People We Meet on Vacation introduces us to likable people in a book. The two main characters are fully fleshed-out, fun to get to know, and fun together. Poppy is short and very colorful and from a somewhat unconventional family; Alex is a straightforward khaki-wearing teacher. The two together are special. Exploring their background and the development of their relationship is both delightful and sometimes painful, as real life tends to be. The travel component is a fun bonus part, with readers able to do a little bit of armchair vacationing in sundry locales. But it’s mostly about the people we meet in this book. Another winner from Emily Henry.
Rated: High. Profanity includes almost 30 instances of strong language, about 50 uses of moderate profanity, about 25 uses of mild language, and about 35 instances of the name of Deity taken in vain. Sexual content includes some crude references and one detailed sex scene.
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