Beach Read by Emily Henry

“That was what I'd always loved about reading, what had driven me to write in the first place. That feeling that a new world was being spun like a spider web around you and you couldn't move until the whole thing had revealed itself to you.”

Beach Read had to be one of the most popular books of 2020. Everybody and their momma read this book. It was on everybody’s to read list, book club list, even my library had a section devoted to this book. Even in all of this, I never read this book. I know, I know. I called myself renting it from the library and I found out I was number 100 and something in line. I quickly gasped and thought to myself “this book cannot be worth all this hoopla!?” I definitely wasn’t sure if it was and I let it be. Only 2 weeks ago did my hold finally become available and I quickly scooped it up.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes best selling romantic fiction novels. They are complete opposites. The only thing they have in common is for three months, they'll be living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and both struggling with writer's block. Until on evening, they strike a pretty crazy deal that will hopefully force them both out of their creative blocks. Augustus will spend all summer writing a happy novel and January will write the next great American novel. She'll take him on romantic comedy field trips and he'll take her to interview survivors of a doomsday cult. Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really...

Romance isn’t something I rate highly a lot of times, if I’m going to be honest. I find so many times it’s contrived, boring, and follows every trope known to man. I don’t run to read romantic books but I see why others ran to read this. It was…refreshing. I didn’t expect so much heart in this book. The chemistry between January and Gus was insane but that wasn’t all the book was about. Two characters who have many other problems and situations happening in their life. Many many complicated things but still fall in love? Be still my beating heart! January is going through an extremely rough time with the passing of her father, some ugly things coming out about his life, and her mother is not really able to process the fallout of everything. January has so many complicated feelings about her relationship with her father and trying to reconcile who he was with who she thought he was. The author does a great job of showing how January deals with grief and also feeling hopeless for a time. I didn't expect that realness in a book I assumed was just fluff.

I enjoyed how competitive and banter filled the conversations between January and Gus were. The whole enemies to lovers trope is SO far from anything that interest me, so I’m very happy we didn’t end up in that territory. But I had a few things in common with the narrator January. Our competitive spirit is something I saw a lot of myself in the character. I understood how she made a whole arch nemesis of Gus, when he had a crush on her the whole time! I’ve been known to make mountains out of molehills many a times in my life. Watching two characters speak in sarcasm and dry humor the entire time? Right up my alley! While their were a few moments where clear communication would've helped, the book didn't revolve around missed communication. I enjoyed reading two adults be honest about their feelings and the future they saw for themselves. So many novels revolve around adults not understand or being clear about how they truly feel, which is extremely frustrating for me to read. It is not quirky, fun, or cute to read about adults not communicating well or communicating at all! All romance author please take note of that ASAP!

Beach Read is literally a perfect beach read! I see exactly why it was so beloved and highly reviewed within the last year. I went in with low expectations and this quickly raised the bar on the next romantic book I read. Anyone who wants a light, fun, and heartfelt read will love this one. This is easily a 4 out of 5 stars book for me. I’ll be reviewing Emily Henry’s newest book , People We Meet On Vacation, very soon and I hope that lives up to this book. Because this book definitely set the bar high!