Emily Henry writes good books with bad, misleading titles. The frolicky looking covers don’t do justice to the stories either. With better, more-fitting titles, her books, I believe, would have been more widely read. Right now, it feels like chick lit and that definitely puts off many people. I didn’t read her books for the longest time as I felt I had outgrown those kinds of stories.
But as everybody—people I knew and random strangers on the Internet—was raving about her books, I picked up ‘You and Me on Vacation’. I’d stop reading the moment I felt my stomach roil (love stories tend to have that effect on me). It didn’t and I loved the book.
So naturally I wanted to read ‘Beach Read’ which was even more hyped than ‘People We Meet on Vacation’ (the US title of You and Me on Vacation). Centered on two writers who strike a deal to write each other’s books, Beach Read has a great premise that delivers till the very end. January is a romance writer who no longer believes in love. Augustus Everett (or ‘Gus’ to January) is a literary writer who is stuck in a rut. They were also nemesis in college with each apparently dissing the other’s work.
Somehow, they end up living in neighboring beach houses. Each is trying to write a novel but is stopped by a massive writer’s block. In a bid to get out of the creative slump, they agree to swap genres. Romance ensues as they get to know each other better.
But the story isn’t limited to that. There’s a lot of heavy content, with issues of abuse, neglect, infidelity and grief bringing in plenty of darkness to what appears to be a lighthearted story. Also, Gus is researching suicide cults and his ‘interviews’ with people who were a part of it are difficult to read at times, as are his traumatic childhood memories.
January learns about her father’s mistress on the day of his funeral and can’t come to terms with it, especially as her father isn’t around to explain himself. The hardest thing isn’t missing someone, it’s being angry with someone and not being able to fight it out, she says. The book is peppered with many contemplative moments like this. The end does feel a bit stretched out but the characters are so empathetically crafted that you are willing to overlook this one fault.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52867387-beach-read
Four stars
Fiction
Beach Read
Emily Henry
Published: 2020
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 361, Paperback
