On vacation, you can be anyone you want. Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself.

People We Meet on Vacation

Thank you, NetGalley and Berkley, for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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?

Okay, so I absolutely loved this book—like truly loved it. When I was reading it, my husband walked in and (like usual) asked me how my book was. I just grinned like an idiot at him and said (loudly and rather quickly), “I love it, it’s friends to lovers, but also estranged friends to lovers, and there’s only one bed, and there are time jumps, and I really want to know what happened in Croatia—” At that point, he was giving me a funny look, so I just hid behind the open pages and went, “I just love it, okay?” then promptly went back to reading until way later than an adult who has to wake up for an 8 am job should stay up reading. 

People We Meet on Vacation follows Poppy and Alex: two friends who shouldn’t really be the best of friends. After an awkward first meeting at a college freshman orientation, they fade out of each other’s lives until a mutual friend gets them together to carpool back home for the summer. And despite being complete opposites, through banter and a game of “what do you hate,” they develop a friendship that lasts a decade. Poppy and Alex tell each other everything, they joke and make fun of each other, and once a year, they take a summer vacation together no matter where they’re living at the time. Until Croatia two years ago, when everything went south. 

Now, Poppy is stuck. She has her dream job in her dream city, but for some reason, she’s miserable, and when she thinks back to the last time she was truly happy, she knows without a doubt that it was on her last vacation with Alex. So, she reaches back out and gets Alex to agree to one more vacation together—one more summer trip to go to his brother’s wedding in California—hoping that maybe she can find what she’s looking for, despite having no idea what it truly is.

From the first page, I was sucked in. The storytelling is captivating, alternating between flashbacks to previous summers and the current summer. Usually, I’m not a big fan of narratives that rely on this time-hopping style, but for this, it absolutely works. The way the flashbacks give a view of how loving their friendship was in the past contrasted against the strain in their friendship now is just haunting and makes you want to keep turning the page to find out where it all went wrong. 

And that was my question throughout the whole book: what went wrong? Once I’d gotten that glimpse of their dynamic in the first scene, I was desperate to find out how two people who fit together so well and have a connection that is just pure and raw and full of love could just fall apart. I can’t answer that question without spoiling it, but let me just say that how Emily Henry got to that answer was just beautiful. She really explored the depths of Poppy and Alex’s friendship, looked at the messy bits and the fun bits, and took me on a rollercoaster until I got the whole picture. And while I don’t enjoy physical roller coasters, I loved this one. One moment I was laughing, and the next moment I just wanted to wrap Poppy and Alex up in a blanket to protect them from the world (and sometimes each other). 

So, if you’re looking for a book that has witty banter, a beautiful friendship, just the right amount of steamy scenes, and that will give you travel envy, look no further than People We Meet on Vacation. Emily Henry’s writing is gorgeous, and I can’t wait to read her first adult romance Beach Read when I head to the beach this summer.