People We Meet on Vacation - Emily Henry

[goodreads]

Title: People We Meet On Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
Genre: Chick-lit
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~11 hrs
Date read: February, 2022

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?


This book suffered from many of the same issues as "The Road Trip" by Beth O'Leary. I just don't appreciate reading about people who used to be close (whether as friends, lovers or family) having a falling out and becoming estranged. This was slightly better than "The Road Trip" as they generally handled it more maturely, but still. I hate the trope of having a couple split up before they can get back together again. Surely a book's conflict can be something other than that - even in a chick-lit.

*Ahrem*... alright, getting off my soap-box now.

I liked reading about Poppy and Alex' friendship, and just wish the book hadn't succumbed to the old "two people of opposite sexes can never just be friends" - but I knew that was going to happen going into the book, so it didn't bother me as much as it could have.