Moved by People We Meet on Vacation
The last time a book made me cry was when I read The Stationery Shop last year and People We Meet on Vacation has ruined my track record.
I went into this book not knowing too much about the premise of the story, but on the flipside, knowing that Emily Henry is hugely popular and I was lucky enough to get the e-arc of this novel. What I wasn’t expecting was to be so moved to tears. This was a novel filled with movie worthy moments: kisses in the rain, unrequited and requited love, and powerful occasions filled with electricity and what ifs.
This is a story about two friends who are so wrong and so right for one another but don’t ever cross the line until one night on the last trip they took together two years ago, and also the last time they really spoke. Poppy is a free spirit, while Alex has a routine but allows Poppy to push him out of his comfort zone whenever they go on their summer trips. But now since that no longer happens, Poppy feels stuck in her job and in her life. And so, she spontaneously invites Alex on a work trip to Palm Springs where Alex’s brother happens to also be getting married at. As the two reunite, they are forced to confront their feelings and figure out what is best for them as friends or possibly something more.
This was a beautiful tale and I must say, I think I like the friends-to-lovers trope. Although it might seem it’s impossible for them not to have explored more than friendship over the span of several years, I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt that Poppy and Alex were complex characters that needed to take the time to figure out who they were and what they wanted. It took me a lot time to figure out what it was I wanted to do as a career resulting in me going back to school again and getting a degree in my current career.
This is another book that I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil it for you. But just know that this was a tearjerker and one that I will be rereading once my TBR is back to a manageable length.
Thank you Berkley and Netgalley for the arc. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Book Description
Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.
Poppy 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.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?