Beach Read

I don't like romance books, they make me roll my eyes & sigh. January and Gus are flawed, sarcastic, pessimistic, funny people who I fell in love with. I knew where the story would end, but the ride to get there was spectacular! Absolutely recommend!

The book is a good story about two people with differences and misunderstanding struggling through life who find that love doesn't necessarily end in heartbreak. anyone looking for a book with engaging characters, irony, humor, sorrows and pain, embracing life.good, bad and ugly will enjoy this light read.

The world is a little dark right now and my preferred genre of reading materials had started giving me nightmares. I had read a few books my Abby Jimenez and on a search to find something similar I discovered Emily Henry. I purchased 3 books on a whim and just finished Beach Read. It was sad, it was fun, it had a little mystery, it made me laugh, it had just enough but not too much “romance” and I loved every word of it. It was an excellent read. I can’t wait to start the next book.

This is my third Emily Henry book. My favorite is Book Lovers. Happy Place I also really enjoyed. But this one...I have very mixed feelings about.What I likedI loved the setting of a summer cottage. I love that both Gus and January are both writers. The banter and chemistry between them was top notch. The characters in this book have depth. Their struggles feel authentic. This book is definitely a slow burn. The spice is perfection. Definitely open door, but not overly graphic or explicit. I loved the letters January received from her father.What I Didn't LikeAlmost every time January and Gus went somewhere, they ended up getting drunk. It got very old after awhile. I also felt like January and Gus used both sex and alcohol to avoid dealing with their issues.Gus is very emotional distant. He has a lot of issues with relationships. He doesn't believe in happily ever after. He has a complicated relationship with his ex. I feel like he wasn't willing to take responsibility and truly address his issues. Instead, he isolates, avoids, and wallows in self pity. The way he treated January after the first spicy scene was not okay. I lost respect for Gus more and more as the book went on. January deserved better. But she allowed Gus to continue to hurt and essentially use her. She didn't stand up to him. She didn't hold him accountable. She didn't give him an ultimatum. Their relationship started out very solid and strong. But as the book went on, it got more hollow and toxic. Their relationship felt more like a summer fling than a relationship that was built to last. They had some major issues that were never really discussed, much less resolved.I definitely want to read more Emily Henry, but this one was a miss for me.

Finally we have a happy ending - loved Gus and January writing and chatting as they pounded out their books - should be a movie!!

this is a lovely soft read. perfect for a solo date outside at the park, laying on a blanket at the beach or a rainy day at home.i was trying to move on from a fantasy series hangover and it took me a while at first to connect with this book but when i finally did i fell in love with the idea of where both January and Gust stayed. the idea of living so close to the beach is a dream.it is a read about love, heartbreak, grief and understanding that your parents aren’t perfect and sometimes in life, we meet our person before we are ready.thank you Emily Henry for this deep, soft read.i look forward to reading more of your books !

I made a mistake when I read this book. I borrowed it from the library when this is one that 100% deserves to be purchased.It was utterly wonderful. I adored this book! I love the MCs imperfections. I loved that they knew each other but not really years before. I loved that he was smitten with her back in the day! (I honestly skipped ahead and found this out, but I didn’t even care because it made him so much more endearing.) It's 1st Person, FMC's POV, slow burn, dare I say, grump/grump trope? The romance was so sweet. It was subtle in the perfect places--the kind that is begging to be reread so you can soak everything up. This is a book that lived up to the damn hype, and I have almost no complaints.This book is absolutely Women's Fiction though. This is not a romance. This has a heavy romance, no lie, but this is Women's Fiction with Romance. The author mentions in the acknowledgments that she tells other writers that this book is about writer's block. Not the romance. It's also very wordy. Like, overwritten, over described, heavy inner monologue which really speaks to women's fiction more than romance as a genre. The plot of them switching genres begins on page 80 of 360ish, so it's a very slow moving plot. But it is incredibly developed. The A plot mixes seamlessly with the B and C plots. You can't have one without the other and I really appreciated that. The plots are also really heavy, again, more women's lit than romance.The back story is really told, not shown, but it is told in a more compelling way than straight true info dumping, and it's told it a beautiful manner. I felt like some of the chapter endings were random. Like, oh crap, gotta cap this chapter now and start the new one. It wasn't distracting too much; it just felt weird. Weirder though, was the choice to have sex--multiple times--outside of a burned down cult site. Like, MMC brought condoms for that outting when he hadn't had them for their other sexytime. So. It was clearly a choice. Unless they stopped using condoms, but given the mention of them . . . it just wasn't the sexiest choice in the world.I loved this book. I'm really looking forward to reading more from Ms. Henry. And I can't wait to buy the book myself and reread it.This one lives up to the hype.

I liked this more than I thought I would. But I have to say I caught myself saying "girl, chill the f out" aloud a few times cuz omg Januarys reactions were extremely exaggerated.... Like girl damnn.... Gus couldn't do anything without her being all like omg he hates me... It was exhausting.. but I really liked it tho.