A delightful enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance with some metafictional touches
“Beach Read” is the first Emily Henry book I’ve finished – I checked out “Happy Place,” but it came with a bumper crop of other library holds, so I only got a couple of chapters in before I had to bring it back. On the strength of “Beach Read,” though, I’ve put myself back in line for “Happy Place”, #24 on 123 copies.
Quick summary: January Andrews is a romance writer in a tailspin after her father’s death reveals a longstanding affair he was having, and after her long-time boyfriend breaks up with her. She moves to his beach house in a small town in western Michigan to work on her next book and make the house ready for sale, and discovers that her next door neighbor is Augustus “Gus” Everett, a college classmate and fiction workshop rival, now feted in literary circles for his handful of moody books.
The story contains a few of the tropes I’ve come to expect in romance: the series of non-date dates that force the characters to discover things about themselves and each other, the quirky cast of supporting characters, the absolute failure to manage the most basic of communication (without which, of course, there would be no story, or at least a much shorter story). They’re all executed extremely well, though, and there are more than enough funny moments for “Beach Read” to land solidly as a top notch romantic comedy. There’s also plenty of heart, and depth of emotion, as January and Gus navigate their own unhappy pasts and negotiate a future that will be a string of “happy-for-now” moments rather than a big “happily-ever-after.”
My favorite romance novels are more about the characters than the plot, and “Beach Read” certainly delivers more strongly on the former than the latter. It sticks to January’s point of view (helpful when the plot hinges so much on misunderstanding – if we saw inside Gus’s head, the game would be up), and she’s a fun and insightful character to spend time with. The plot – Gus and January have challenged each other to try to write something outside their comfort zone, and go on a series of adventures to instruct each other on the nuances of their respective genres. Gus has been researching a cult that came to a fiery end reminiscent of the Branch Davidians, and his events — interviews with survivors and a trip to the ruins of the cult compound — were more interesting to me than January’s jaunts, but I looked forward to all of their outings because of the characters’ funny, bristly banter. I was a little sorry to have it end, which is a good sign that I enjoyed spending time with January and Gus.
