Beach Read by Emily Henry (Twitter, Goodreads)Also by this author: A Million Junes, People We Meet on Vacation
Published by Penguin on May 19th 2020
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Women
Pages: 384
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They're polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
I have been hearing a lot of chatter about this book … really positive chatter I might add. That always scares me because when that happens I tend to go into reading said book with SUPER high expectations. That is what happened with this story and honestly, I’m happy to report that I was really surprised at how much I ended up loving it!
From the get-go you know that January Andrews is in a really bad place emotionally and mentally and financially. It’s all laid out right there in the first few chapters! DO NOT let this cover fool you, while the bright colors and beachy title and graphic feel make you think you’re picking up a fun rom com – that is not this at all. There are a lot of heavy emotional things going on here that as a reader Henry really makes you feel right alongside her characters.
I always love reading books where the characters have a history to refer back to… In my head it adds some extra depth to their relationship happening now and I’m a sucker for second chance romances. I’m not sure I would categorize this as a second chance romance, but they definitely have a history even if it was just that one time but there is a history of feelings and experience that influences how they treat and react to each other as we see them rediscover each other.
The January of now is vastly different than she was in college. Her rosy outlook on happily ever after’s has crashed and burned after the death of her father and some of his secrets come out and she’s struggling to turn in the book that she’s contracted for because she can’t quite get in the same headspace she used to be in to write. When she heads to the house that her father left for her, she certainly didn’t expect to run into Gus… or Augustus Everett… her college writing nemesis.
Gus himself isn’t in a great spot either, but there is no denying the chemistry between these two and I really, really loved the build to their relationship. I found myself smiling and laughing along with them as they got to know each other better and all the teasing and banter just made me happy. Things do take a turn towards the second half of the book – partly because the book that Gus is researching is undeniably heavy and the ‘field trips’ that they are going on for his book is a direct counterpoint to the ‘field trips’ that January is organizing around her romance.
I absolutely loved the romance here – yes there is some steamy stuff, but for me it was all the in between moments that really sucked me in! Henry does an amazing job of building those small interactions where you just see these two connect in such an emotional way that really invests you in their relationship as a reader.
The writing here is just wonderful and the story is captivating, and I found once I started this I just couldn’t put it down and ended up devouring the story in a day.
This is absolutely a love story – don’t think it isn’t, but it’s about so much more than that… how the things we experience change us, how the people we know influence our outlook on life and love, and how trauma can really impact how we move forward in our lives.
Fiction fans – definitely grab this one now – it’s out on shelves as of May 19th!
I could feel the pain too, the low-grade ache I’d be left with if and when this thing between Gus and me imploded. I could perfectly imagine every sensation, in the pit of my stomach and the palms of my hands, the sharp pulses of loss that would remind me of how good it felt to stand here with him like this, but for once, I didn’t think letting go was the answer.
I wanted to hold on to him, and this moment, for a while.
About Emily Henry
Emily Henry is the author of The Love That Split the World. She is a full-time writer, proofreader, and donut connoisseur. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. She tweets @EmilyHenryWrite.
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