Summer of Love BUDDY READ: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

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Welcome to the third of now four buddy reads that Stephanie (Once Upon a Chapter), Lillian (Mom With a Reading Problem) and I will be sharing over the SUMMER OF LOVE!  The last buddy read will be co-reviewed and shared exclusively on Mom With a Reading Problem.

Obviously find my review below, and check out Lillian’s review here and Stephanie’s review here.

Title: People We Meet on Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
Published by: Penguin Audio
Release Date: May 11, 2021
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Length: 10 hours and 46 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Source: Kobo Audio
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Summer
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:

Blurb:

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.

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?

My Review:

4.5 stars — I avoided this book at times because it made me feel so many things.  While it was fucking hilarious for a great deal of it, it was also heart wrenching and emotional.  And not always full on cry emotional, just ouchie my heart hurts emotional.

I know it’s only been two books, but the combination of Emily Henry’s writing and Julia Whelan’s narration is pretty hard to beat.  I could marry Julia Whelan’s Alex voice, if that were a thing one could do.  Her dry humour, wit, fun and distinctive voices, and pacing always hit with me.  But it’s her ability to convey genuine emotion that fucking gets me every time.  My eyes leaked.  On multiple occasions.

Poppy — I connected with her so hardcore at times.  Hearing her stories about her childhood and being tormented but still being fucking unable to be anyone but herself just brought everything back for me.  When she talked about wearing the overalls her Mom patched up for her, I remember wearing some of the awesome (and frankly weird) outfits that Mom made me (or helped me make).  It’s hard when you find it impossible to squelch your inner self when that’s what most kids do.  Apparently I had a lot to say about that.  But yeah.  I got that about Poppy more than I expected.

And frankly, she was fucking hilarious.  *THEY* were fucking hilarious together.  Jesus, I can’t even tell you how often I laughed or gleefully grinned (because I don’t always laugh out loud).  Their banter was just off the walls sometimes, and they were so quick.  I loved seeing them find their soulmate in one another, even before they realized it was an all the way soulmate and not just a friendship soulmate dealio.  They just…fit.  They made me so happy and so mad and sometimes it would swap in seconds.  Like, holy cow you guys.  I guess that is one of the things that frustrated me about Poppy — that she was so ruled by fear that she cut off her own legs at times and didn’t give Alex a chance.  I got it, to a degree, but it was harder and harder to watch.

Alex — Even not having Alex’s POV, I still honestly feel like I knew him.  They were such an odd fucking pair, like the odd couple.  But they fit.  THEY SERIOUSLY FIT.  Their weird crazy edges just welded right onto each other.  And I guess I appreciated that he was also full of fear and made some boneheaded moves at times…  I find sometimes in books it’s all one character, and that just makes it so hard.  But they both had moments.

Together — They were just fiery and funny and sassy and sweet and…and…  It was a LONG road to get answers and to get pay off, but I didn’t mind.  I enjoyed the journey, even if I kept saying “WTF HAPPENED IN CROATIA???!!!” over and over again.

It reminded me of Love, Rosie (I only saw the movie).  It popped into my head in Tuscany (for those that read it) and it was so obvious.  But I enjoyed this way more.  I enjoyed them together way more.

It was kind of a long ride listening to this one.  I was in a book funk, but I was genuinely enjoying this one.  I think it was just a bit too much for my heart and so I had to take sips.  You know, until the end when I started chugging.

COYER Community: As I mentioned above, Stephanie (Once Upon a Chapter), Lillian (Mom With a Reading Problem) and I buddy read this book, and I can confidently say we all loved it.  Lillian rated it 5 stars and Stephanie rated it 4.5 stars.