Beach Read by Emily Henry is a tender and vulnerable journey of two former rivals as they struggle through their personal grief to write their next novel…and maybe find love along the way.

January Andrews has just uncovered her father's huge secret, days after his sudden death. Now she is struggling to pen her newest romance novel, since her faith in love has been shaken to the core. She discovers her new summer neighbor, Gus, is battling some of his own writer's block and turmoil as well. Despite driving each other crazy, they make a bet to switch genres and pen the best novel. Things can't possibly be that easy, though...

Beach Read is such a surprisingly wonderful combination of elements - nothing I expected! To be clear, this isn't a light and fluffy romcom - I think the cover and title are a bit deceiving. However, I enjoy the more serious topics of grief, disappointment, family secrets, and forgiveness. The characters are deeply flawed and broken, and struggle to connect with each other while finding their own sense of worth and purpose. They stumble and falter, but just keep holding onto the promise of something better.

It's a bit of a slow burn for the romance, and for the redemption of both of their beliefs and confidence. There was some great humor to offset the heavy topics, and I found myself alternating between tears and laughs! This is such a moving, delightful and fun read, with equal parts vulnerability and tenderness. I'll definitely be recommending this!

January Andrews has always been a romantic. She loves the idea of love so much - after having witnessed her parents' beautiful story - that when she decided to become a writer, it was pretty easy for her to figure out what she wanted to write: romance, happily ever after required. After the loss of her father, her beliefs are shaken to the core, and January finds herself battling writer's block. With a deadline looming, she decides to hole up at a beach house for the summer. Still, the words and the story just won't form. It also doesn't help that her neighbor is none other than author, and former college rival, Augustus Everett, pretty much January's opposite in every way. He too is working on writing this summer, but much like January his story is just not coming together.

Then one night, one thing leads to another and they've made a bet to see who can successfully switch to the other's genre and sell their book first. With lessons on meet cutes, and field trips to interview former cult members, they're both determined to meet their goal, but falling in love was never in the cards.

I feel like I was equally unsurprised by this book, but still was totally not expecting the nuances of the story. The premise alone sold me on this book and in that regard I feel like it delivered, I was just unprepared for how much depth and emotion Emily Henry would fit into the story, and how much it would shape into this lovely book about love.

Not just romantic love, although January and Gus's slow-burn towards one another was perfect, but we're also dealing with the love and loss of January's father. The idolization we have for our parents and the times when we find them lacking can truly be shocking. On the other side of that you have Gus who grew up in an abusive household.

Gus is like January's mirror opposite in most everything from their families to what and how they write to their outlooks on life. And you see this and you understand this. But have you ever stared at yourself in the mirror, observing yourself seemingly moving in the opposite way, but in reality it's the same side? I feel like that's Gus and January. They both have the same wants and needs, but they don't bring all of that to the surface level. They're romance is about getting them to that level with each other. Not Happily Ever After, but at least Happy For Now.

I loved Emily Henry's play on the various romance tropes along with her commentary about the never-ending debate between literature vs. romance. Those who disregard the romance genre as fluff when really they're often anything but. I also love the way that January's image of herself is so linked to romance, particularly her parent's love story, that when truths are shattered it actually threatens to break her. Until she realizes that how she feels about love does not and should not hinge on one circumstance. As I said earlier in my review, January's journey is very nuanced, and I absolutely loved it. I say January, but really both January and Gus discover so much about themselves over the course of the story, but being told from January's point of view, I feel like her story takes a bit more precedence.

Beach Read is one of those books that you finish and wish you could turn around and read it for the first time again. I loved the journey, I loved the discoveries. Pretty much loved everything about it. Highly recommended. You won't be sorry.

Beach Read by Emily Henry was a good book but I just didn't love it as much as I hoped I would. It didn't grab me as much as I expected and overall, I simply wasn't very invested into the story.

Once I got into Beach Read, it was a very quick read but there also were many moments in which I was a bit bored and had to push myself to continue reading the novel. Based on the cover, I thought this would be a very cute and fluffy romance read but it was actually a lot more serious and heavy. It deals with grief and loss of a parent and even though I did not expect that, I actually really liked that this wasn't a book in which everyone was just happy and everything was completely fine.

I really loved the idea of letting the two main characters write a book from the other character's usual genre. Ultimately though, this was a pretty big part of the story in the first half of the novel, but I feel like it kind of started fading into the background at some point which I was quite sad about. We did get to read some of the passages from the book January was writing but I would've also been very interested in finding out how Gus was doing with his romance novel. Sadly, we didn't really find out what kind of book he ended up writing until the epilogue, though we at least learned a bit about the things he usually writes about on the research trips January and Gus took which by the way, were one of my favorite parts of this book.

As for the characters themselves, I had my problems with both January and Gus. January was a bit too annoying and insecure for my liking and she always assumed the worst about everyone. Gus was quite weird and closed off for most of the book but pretty much from one second to the other he was all over January and in love with her. I didn't hate either of them but I also couldn't really connect with the two of them. Before I started reading this book I also read somewhere that this is an enemies-to-lovers romance but I wouldn't really call it that. They know each other from college and January thinks Gus hates her for some reason and he thinks January hates him for some reason. However, while they definitely weren't friends at the start of this novel, they also weren't exactly enemies and there wasn't really any of the tension between them that you usually find in a good enemies-to-lovers romance.

So all in all, Beach Read wasn't perfect but it was still a good book. I know it sounds like I kind of hated it but even though I had my problems with it, I overall still enjoyed reading it. I loved the setting of the book (Lake Michigan), the cute details about life in the town and I also really loved Emily Henry's writing style and definitely want to go read some of her other books in the future!

Synopsis
January Andrews is a romance novelist with a deadline. The only problem? She doesn’t believe in happy ever afters anymore. After her father and role model died, she found out that he had a mistress and a secret love shack on the beach. Broke and desperate for inspiration, she decides to move to this house that she inherited for the summer so she can clear it out to sell while writing her next bestseller. Little does she know, her college rival, literary author Augustus Everett, lives next door. He’s infuriating and judgmental and just as handsome as she remembers. They both think the other can’t write in their genre, and they find themselves making a bet: he’ll write a happy ever after and she’ll write a literary masterpiece. Whoever sells their book first gets the other to formally recommend it. Of course, things are never quite so simple…

My Thoughts
Beach Read has an intriguing premise, and the delivery does not disappoint. In the opening of the novel, January is quite distressed after finding out that her father had not only been cheating on her mother when she had cancer, but that he had a secret house with his mistress. January’s boyfriend of seven years had broken up with her, because she’s no longer the carefree woman that he fell in love with. How is January supposed to write a light romance with a happy ending when she doesn’t believe in them anymore?

Gus is a charming ladies’ man, but he uses his charm to keep women at an arm’s length. He’s had a rough past, and it’s reflected through his preferred genre. After the two make their bet, they both have to assist the other with their “research” or “training” in what it means to write in each other’s genre. For January, that means a night out at the carnival, (which, of course, Gus finds mortifying), but for Gus, this means researching a suicide-cult.

January and Gus are polar opposites at the surface, but it turns out that they have a lot in common once you dig past those top layers.

As a genre writer myself, I felt that I related to January on a deeper level. That level of finding literary authors who are condescending and full of themselves insufferable. I completely understood January and how she felt about Gus during their college days. I could almost feel the judgment and arrogance ooze off him during the early scenes in the book.

I absolutely adored the story line regarding January and her father. Every day she’s confronted with evidence of the fact that he had a secret life. The subplot of her coming to terms with what her father did is part of what makes this book so remarkable. Beach Read isn’t just about her budding romance with Gus, it’s about her relationship with her father and figuring out who she is and who she wants to be.

The only thing I didn’t quite like about this book is the fact that January is incredibly broke, yet she’s an author. Authors shouldn’t quit their day jobs until they have a consistent income from their books. Both January and Gus talk about how much they need their advances, but it’s never mentioned how much January is making from royalties off her previous books. Perhaps she should be supplementing her income with freelance writing gigs? This feels nitpicky, I know, but it’s a trope I’ve seen quite often in novels, which is ironic, because you’d think that the authors of these novels would know more about the intricacies of the publishing world.

Beach Read is equally hilarious and heartfelt, and there are parts that made me laugh out loud followed by heart-wrenching moments of honesty. Ironically, the title of this novel is Beach Read, but unless you want to be alternating between laughing out loud and crying while reading at the beach, this book is best read in the confines of your home.

I was expecting a whimsical enemies-to-lovers rom-com but Beach Read turned out to be a multi-layered story with interesting subplots, too.

January's loss after her father's death is compounded by a family secret that comes to light. Unable to accept it or face her mother, she escapes to her father's beach house only to find that her nemesis from college, Gus Everett lives next door. Gus is also a successful novelist and they're both coincidentally suffering from writer's block. In an unusual move, they agree to call a truce and help each other overcome their writing slump by learning about the other's preferred genre. As they become closer, they start to open up and face the many truths they've been fighting so hard to avoid.

I enjoyed this novel immensely. There was humour, heartbreak, forgiveness and redemption. I thought it was slightly slow burn and I liked the pace at which January and Gus' friendship evolved into something deeper. I admired how their love scenes were written as well. They were sensual and it did feel like their vulnerabilities were on full display, that those emotionally intimate moments truly meant something more than just physical. Reading about how they worked to come out of their writer's block was also fascinating. I think where Beach Read triumphs is with their respective story arcs. They'd been contending with extremely personal and sensitive matters, some of which had affected their psyches so deeply. They just needed to be with the right person in whom they could trust, who would stand by them through their emotional journeys. Henry succeeded in not only how she approached them but in making me care equally about January and Gus.

Beach Read was smart and delightful even during the harder moments but everything about it felt so authentic. It will be added to my re-read pile, for sure!

~ Bel

A Wager Between Blocked Writers

January Andrews, a best selling romance writer, is broke and disillusioned with romance. Although she never guessed, her father had a long term affair. When he died, he left her his beach house love nest. January hates being there, but she has a novel to finish and she’s blocked.

Things get worse when she recognizes her next door neighbor, Gus Everett. He is an acclaimed literary novelist, but their acquaintance goes back to college where they were rivals. January felt he didn’t take her writing seriously. Gus is also trying to finish a novel and he’s blocked.

One night they hit on a solution to getting unblocked. January will write Gus’ novel. He’ll tackle her romance. To spur each other on they take a series of field trips: romantic sunsets for Gus, hard hitting dark interviews for January. In the process their attraction blooms, but can they finish the books?

This is a summery romance novel. January and Gus have an almost love/hate relationship fueled by competition. There is plenty of amusing dialog as they get to know each other better and try to work in each other’s genre.

The plot moves at a good pace. As we get to know the characters and learn about the childhoods they become real people. I found the ending very satisfying, not unexpected but satisfying.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

I wish I could have read this on the beach! It was such a cozy novel to get lost in. January and Augustus had sweet, and sexy, chemistry and I enjoyed their banter. It struck a good balance with the heavier aspects of the story and while both were experiencing writing struggles, they both seemed equally talented. This was a fun read, beach or not... the writing was engaging and it did a good job with the "feels."

January Andrews believes in love. It is always what kept her going. When tragedy struck her time and time again it was the magic of love that sustained her. This time, she is learning that love isn’t pretty, it isn’t perfect, and it may not even be real. She packs up and heads to a small beach house her father leaves her to figure out her next romance novel and what love really is.

She never expected to see her archnemesis, Augustus Everett. But sure enough, he is her neighbor and he is still the grumpy male she has always known him to be. Joining the local book club, January expects to get her mojo back. Instead, she finds herself thrown back into the path of Augustus and he challenges her as he did in college. He will write a happily ever after story and she will write step into the literary arena.

I went into this book thinking it was going to give me one thing but it gave me EVERYTHING! I was literally twenty percent into the book and immediately went to read the blurb again. Did I make a mistake? This book is heavy. It is real. I can relate but where is the romance? The saying is ‘patience is a virtue’ for a reason. I kept right on reading and next thing I knew it was 2 a.m. and that tug in my gut that I get when I read a really good love story hit me.

This is the unexpected. The book that doesn’t just give you what you think it should, it gives you what you need. This is not just a romance. This is a story about love, life, loss, betrayal, and friendship. Summer isn’t here yet but is it safe to say that this is my favorite summer read? Is that even fair?

The story is told from January’s perspective but I got a full understanding of Gus without having his voice. Gus is such a broken character and though he is hard to read when the penetrable walls start to break he gives so much. His character’s transformation as he opens up is breathtaking.

For January to be a romance author and believing in her perfect story, I found it interesting she didn’t know how to just fall in love. She rushed into her past relationship and built the perfect image but with Gus she finds the perfect romance.

The chemistry is on point. The humor hits just when it is suppose to hit. The side characters are endearing. The feels are all there. Despite some of the cheesiness, I. Loved. Every. Single. Word.

~ Samantha

I'd heard great things and was so happy that the book lived up to all of them! I just wish I'd actually been on a beach to enjoy it.

This book was absolutely incredible! It was everything I could have hoped for from the premise and a whole lot more. It was emotional and romantic and heartfelt. I connected with January's complicated relationship with her father, and even cried over it at times.

Emily Henry has always been a great writer, but I truly think she shines in this book.

Just the book I needed right now! Every Emily Henry book I read has this way of making me feel lighter in my soul. She writes is so beautiful and filled hope but in a way that doesn’t make me want to puke.

I loved January and Gus, especially the way that their relationship evolved as they helped each other write. Their banter was witty and filled with just the right amount of flirtation to keep me highly invested the whole way through.

Thank you, Emily Henry and may the Goddess bless Jack Reacher.

*Free ARC provided via NetGalley

Really enjoyed this one! Both characters were great but I loved Gus' character more and it was really interesting how his style of writing is very different from January's. They both have emotional baggage but I was more interested in Gus' past because January's could get annoying (but that's more of a personal thing because it would hit a personal nerve). The surrounding characters were awesome and I absolutely love Pete and Maggie. Maggie reminds me a lot of my geology professor because of her love for rocks. Total nerd right there and I love Maggie. January and Gus' "dates" were so fun to read about and I'd swoon a lot.

This book is amazing! I really enjoyed the charming story and the characters are memorable. I will be writing a proper review later but I just wanted to say that I love this book. Everyone needs a story like this in their lives! Review coming soon!

January Andrews is struggling to write her next happy romance. She’s a successful author, with more than a few novels under her belt, but when her beloved father dies, revealing a vibrant, ahem, secret life very separate from January and her mother, January is forced to come to terms with, not only the gaping hole of his absence, but now his betrayal. With a deadline from her publisher looming, January decides to get away for the summer to focus on writing.

Unfortunately for her, the house she’s moved into happens to be located directly next to the home of an old college rival, Gus Everett, fellow writer and permanent curmudgeon. The two don’t exactly get off to a great start, especially since they’re both frustrated by their own writer’s block. In the midst of insulting each other’s preferred writing styles one day, they make a deal. Gus will write a novel with a happy ending, and January will write something dark. They decide to make it educational and promise to teach each other about the necessary elements of their respective genre tropes through weekly educational field trips (like to the romantic ferris wheel at the county fair…or to a burned down family of cult cabins, whatever). Whoever gets published first wins the right to declare themselves the better writer. In the end, though, their separate stories may bring them closer than ever.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review. Where to start with this one? Well, it was EXACTLY what I needed in my life with so much gloom and doom lately.

January and Gus have been unproclaimed enemies since their college writing days. January writes happily ever afters, while Gus writes doomsday literary fiction, can they be any different? When they both end up at lake front homes in Michigan, after years of their lives beating them down, they decide the perfect idea to pull each other out of their funks - to write a novel in each other's genres. Will real life transpire through their novels?

This book was everything. It felt like total real life - a girl down on her luck, stumbling into exactly what she didn't know she was looking for when she thought she was hitting rock bottom. I laughed, I cried, I got a little steamy, and I cheered while reading this story. The characters are incredibly likeable and witty, even though they both have their obvious faults. The back and forth of January and Gus had me frantically reading to know where their story ends up. I loved the banter between them, but also the emotional journeys they both faced on their own and how they learned to embrace them together. This is exactly what any romance, rom-com, chick-lit reader needs to pick up if they're looking for their next read!

I had some friends talk about this book and I was having major FOMO. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much as they did.

I never felt really connected to the characters and I felt like they fell for each other really fast, so I wasn't too invested. I definitely did enjoy some of their banter and appreciated the author's sense of humor.

I think the cover and title make it seem like this is just a light and fun read, but it actually has a lot of depth and deals with some serious issues, so perhaps my mindset just wasn't right when I started it.

For the conservative reader, there is definitely steam and language too, so heads up if that's a concern for you.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my gifted advance copy.

This was an enjoyable romantic comedy that also dealt with some heavier issues. January is a romance writer who retreats to her late father's lake house to deal with her grief and finish her latest novel. When she arrives, she realizes her next door neighbor is Gus, an old college classmate and fellow author. The two have a funny rivalry and romantic chemistry, but both are dealing with more serious problems and have complicated family histories. I enjoyed their banter and the challenge they set up for each to write in the other's genre, as well as the supporting characters and townspeople. However, I felt their relationship and the stakes in general were a little lackluster. The book was well written and I wanted to find out what happened, but I wasn't completely invested in January and Gus's love story, and their personal issues -- particularly Gus's -- weren't explored enough for them to work.

What a delight this book was! One of the better romances I have read over the last few years. January and Gus are real, relatable, and dealing with heavy issues that are just as much a part of their character development as the romance arc is. If you are looking for a light, fluffy beach read, you may want to do more research! Grief, loss, mental health issues and more are openly discussed (and discussed well). This has steam and a love story, but it is about so much more than that. I love the direction Emily Henry took with this novel (especially the angle of writer's block...we don't see a lot of writers writing about other authors). I will recommend this to all romance and contemporary fiction lovers.

This book!! It was a breath of fresh air and so much more than a love story! The fact it also takes place in Michigan made my day! January Andrews who is a romance author has just lost her father and at his funeral discovers he had a secret life and a beach house in Michigan. With everything going on she’s suffering from writers block and to make matters worse she’s broke, hoping to figure things out she heads to Michigan and stay at the beach house. While at the local bookstore and talking to its owner Maggie, she’s surprised to hear another author is staying next door to her, and it’s her college rival and enemy Gus Everett. As they talk and open up they realize they both are suffering from writers block so they make a bet and switch genres he will tackle romance and she will tackle a darker book. What happens this fateful summer will change both their lives, they peel back layers they keep hidden from the outside world. Each character confronts their past and the chemistry between these characters were everything. I loved the journey I was taken on in this book this is so much more than a rom com. So many emotions I cried I laughed I felt like this was real relationship and I find myself closing the book with a smile on my face!

Emily Henry’s Beach Read might, by its title, imply an easy reading experience, but it’s actually somewhat complex. I’ll start with the important stuff: yes, I liked it.

January Andrews, a women’s fiction writer, is spending her summer at a beach house which was bestowed upon her at her married father’s funeral by his lover –an unhappy surprise, needless to say. She’s trying to write her fourth book, but her heart isn’t in it, which is a problem because her books are all about hearts in love. One evening, she discovers that her next door neighbor is Augustus – Gus - Everett, a successful literary fiction author she happened to have a thing for in college. They make a deal: trade their genres and literary demographics and the winner is “whoever sells their book first”. I was wildly excited with this premise. If you can’t imagine enjoying this book without it sticking to that idea, don’t bother reading it. If you’re open to a book that basically ignores its own premise and still manages to be good, allow me to make my case.

This is a book about two loves: one is romantic – the love between January and Gus. The other is the love between a writer and the craft of writing. I enjoy books by authors about writing (like Stephen King’s On Writing) and I definitely felt the palpable excitement of the act of creating in this book (which is funny because Henry includes an author’s note of sorts saying “The summer I wrote Beach Read, I was feeling absolutely sapped of energy and inspiration”). Beach Read is intelligent and intentional – you could analyze every creative choice and find a smart reason behind it that comments on writing, romance, etc. The book itself is a hybrid of the genres written by the two main characters. Henry generally follows the romance format, but mixes in the drama and ambiguity of literary fiction and women’s fiction.

I had two issues with this novel. Henry wrote a love story I really liked – the chemistry is phenomenal (January has a dream about Gus and I had a dream about this book after I read it) – but then does a late reveal that our hero isn’t quite as available as he initially appears, which taints everything that came before it and was absolutely unnecessary.  I also felt somewhat conned – I would have loved to see a romance written by a man, but we get none of Gus’s manuscript. We get excerpts from January’s book (it’s essentially a really messed up The Night Circus) but not of Gus’s. And he doesn’t even actually “write a happily ever after”! He writes a book about a cult with an ending that would blow up the comments section of a review here at AAR. Plus, Beach Read is entirely told in first person perspective by January, when a dual perspective would have been a perfect fit for a story that is defined by duality of characters and genres.

Both main characters have had childhoods that stretched the limits of what a child should have to endure. Gus’s background involves abuse from his father, and January grew up with a mother fighting cancer. Gus’s character is depicted as one of those ‘externally a rock, internally a cinnamon roll’ sorts, but I didn’t feel entirely convinced at the late revelation of his motivations and fears, which all work to portray him as more vulnerable. I had to warm up to January – I’ve never been charmed by main characters who first appear before me ill-dressed and ready to get liquored up, as January does. That said, she gets it together enough to be an entirely adequate heroine.

I learned before starting Beach Read that this was Henry’s first book outside of the young adult genre, and according to the internet it looks like she’s contracted for another adult fiction work. I am not a regular reader of YA, but I can say that nothing about the style of the book made me think Henry wasn’t comfortable writing for adults. Beach Read reads like all the other romance and women’s fiction I’ve encountered, and it was on par with the better books in those genres I’ve read recently.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent bookstore
Visit our Amazon Storefront