
Member Reviews

Trigger Warnings for This Book: mentions of abuse, mentions of a cult, cancer, and death of a parent, mention of cheating.
If you are looking for enemies to lovers romance then this is definitely the one you wanna read. This book was such a quick and fun read. If you don’t know already I will read almost any book that has the enemies to lovers trope. Augustus and January are such cute characters. I love them so much. The author made them flawed with their own problems hopes and dreams.
January writes romance novels with a happy ending. Augustus writes suspenseful action with sad plot lines and endings. They were enemies during college but we don’t really get a whole lot of background information on them besides that he always made the comment about her books always have a happy ending. They make a bet to see which one can write the other genre and get that book published before the other. I love this idea so much. It’s such a fun and cute idea. We get to see all of their interactions and they are so funny when they try to teach the other how to write their genre.
I really enjoyed how each character had a different thing going on. I won’t say anything about it because of spoilers but it really helped make them well-rounded characters. The cover for this matches the book so well and it’s one of my favorites styles.
I have a feeling this book will be on one of my top books of 2020. Definitely not your typical romance book. This was the first book I’ve read by her and if she writes any more romance books I will be picking them up.

Well I can't say that this book was bad because it isn't! I feel like im just not in the mood for this type of romance. It started out good, but I just got bored with it!! I can see why others would definitely enjoy this one!

💛 BEACH READ 🏖
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Good morning, friends! A little rainy here this morning but the sun is finally trying to peek through the clouds. I bet it will end up being a beautiful day here!
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I wanted to share my review of BEACH READ. Thank you @berkleypub @berkleyromance {partners} for my gifted copy.
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After an intense thriller, I read this book and was immediately drawn in. I’ve heard people describe this one as The Notebook meets You’ve Got Mail meets The Lake House (some of my favorites) and that is a perfect description of this book!
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In fact, the story of January Andrews, a bestselling romance author who after her father’s death realizes the world isn’t quite how she envisioned it was... well it will grab hold of your heartstrings. Because we can all relate to a situation in our life when our naive view shifted due to heartbreak.
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When she finds out she is left a Lake house she decides to move into it in hopes of learning more about her father, while also rediscovering her passion for writing, and hopefully writing her next book.
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When she realizes her old college rival, Augustus Everett, lives next door she realizes that some things never change as their rivalry and tension pick up right where they left off.
As she works on penning Happily Ever After, he loves literary fiction where the cast ends up dead. To say they are complete opposites would be an understatement.
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But, can you overcome the baggage and struggles of your past, as you accept the truth life gives you, to become the best version of yourself? Or, are you destined to carry that baggage, and those hurts, with you for life?
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This story grabbed hold of me and I flew through the first half! I will say I found the last half to be slower paced but I loved the story with people with messy, real life issues and insecurities. Plus, I love a classic enemies to lovers trope. .
My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I wanted to love this book: rivals to lovers, romance author and literary fiction author swap genres and compete to see who sells their book first. It just sounded like so much fun.
And it was fun, for the most part. And the book packed quite the emotional punch as well. But I started getting a little bored pretty early on, and that didn't really fade for the remainder of the book. The thing is, I just feel like this book was a lot longer than necessary and it felt quite long-winded because of that. There were parts that felt less relevant to the storyline and parts that I felt didn't get all the attention they deserved in favour of less interesting aspects. I would have preferred if the book had been more structured and more condensed, so it could really focus on the main storyline and the character's development.
Because the character development felt a little like it was secondary to the story at times. Don't get me wrong, there was quite a lot of it, but the execution of it left me wanting. We have a love interest who goes through a lot of development, but that means his personality pretty much makes a 180 turn, and he's almost unrecognizable towards the end of the book. And we have a main character whose main struggle's resolution is left to the very ending of the book, which made it feel rushed.

Don’t be fooled by the cheery cover; I loved this book, but it’s no rom-com. January is a 29-year-old romance writer who no longer believes in happily-ever-after. Demoralized and broke, she moves into the beach house she inherited when her father died, hoping to lick her wounds and finish her current manuscript. But then, in a cruel twist of fate, she discovers her neighbor is the beloved literary fiction writer Augustus Everett, her college rival (and crush), whom she was hoping to never see again. But it turns out Gus has troubles of his own, and so the two make a bet to get their writing back on track: January will try her hand at the “bleak literary fiction” that Gus writes, and Gus will write a romance novel. A warm and delightfully meta take on love, writing, and second chances.

This book is a delight! VOICE. Right from the jump, I was just drawn in by the voice in this book. I am often skeptical of 1st person from exclusively the female character's POV, but this book proves I can be charmed by it. I think people who are curious about romance and think they'd be most interested in a contemporary setting might enjoy this.
This is a contemporary romance that has family secrets and cults in it, and I'm all in on that! It's funny, both main characters are engaging and interesting, and all the meta stuff in the book, brainstorming books within books, is another thing I'm drawn to. I also think it makes a good point that is hard to wrangle with, which is that we want to neatly categorize people as "good" and "bad," but it's a pointless endeavor when the better endeavor is to try to be comfortable with having complicated feelings and resist the urge to reduce them.
What kept it a 4 star book for me is that Gus's story is a little bit too much of the stereotypcial "man pain" for me, and I didn't find there to be that much tension built into their story. I often think the "one honest conversation could solve all this" to be a weak criticism for a book, because it's not as if honest conversations are easy or common, but here I am kind of making that criticism, I guess. Also, there's a runner about "give up pants," and that reads as fatphobic to me. And weirdly, more potty humor than I ever want in a book? To each their own, but I'm never going to find a farting dog funny.
***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing and ARC in exchange for my honest review.***

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. While she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. The only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses and bogged down with writer’s block. Until 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. review: This was another one of my Book of the Month picks and while it was a cute read, it definitely wasn’t one of my favorites this month. I think I was expecting more of a light-hearted rom-com and, while there were certainly aspects of that, it was a bit more deep and different than I was expecting! I liked the premise and thought it sounded so promising. To me it read more like women’s fiction with a bit of romance mixed in. Not only does it delve into the relationship with Augustus and January, it really focuses on the grief January feels losing her dad. With that said, I did enjoy the book. I really liked both Augustus and January – I thought they were well-developed and the banter between the two of them was fun to read! I also enjoyed learning a bit more about the writing process of authors and the pressures that come along with it. rating: 3.5 out of 5 ⭐️

This was my first book by Emily Henry and I adored every second of it!! I’ve been struggling with contemporary romance since coronavirus started, finding most don’t distract me from the real world enough, but Beach Read was like a breath of fresh air. Something about this story was so delightful and new. I was immediately entranced by the characters and found the banter between the two to be exactly what I needed. This story has so much heart and emotion, but still has some funny moments. However it is not the rom-com it appears to be with this cute cover. There’s definitely quite a few heavier moments. But I loved every second of this book and recommend it highly!

I have loved every book by Emily Henry and Beach Read was no exception! An incredible read with a great cast of characters that will be perfect to read this summer.

This book is AMAZING. It’s all the way up in my rom-com loving feels. Their banter is laugh-out-loud cute, their chemistry is achingly taunting & the whole story is touching. I LOVE IT. My full review will be on my blog soon, www.bookishabigail.com and on my Instagram- @BookishAbigail!

An incredibly well written, thoughtful romance that I literally couldn’t put down! I really enjoyed how nuanced Emily Henry wrote both characters and their different backgrounds and opinions on life, writing, and romance. Definite recommend!

Wish I'd been able to read it before the LibraryReads deadline, as I would have voted for it. I enjoyed what I got a chance to read, and will buy copies for the library and recommend it to my customers.

I can not even find the words to tell you how happy, honoured I feel to have received an invitation to read and review Beach Read so early before it's publication.
I already know that this book will be on my "best of 2020" list.
It is a perfect, relaxing beach read even though it can be devoured in any time, in every possible corner of the world, not only on beach. (😜😎)(I mean, I read it during winter and still enjoyed it the most!)
The story is written in first person, following January (the name of our main character) who after loss of her father and revelation of his secret has hard time believing in happily ever afters, and suffers from the writing block, when she should finish her next romance novel.
Placing herself in the new house in a small town, she comes across her rival from Uni days, who is well respected, published author of literary fiction now.
They start spending more and more time together and January starts to develop feelings for him.
I enjoyed every page of this book.
Do you know that feeling when you read a good story and don't want it to end, so you start to read it at slower pace only to have more time with it?
That's what my experience was with Beach Read. I didn't want it to end.
My favourite part of the story was the chemistry between Gus and January, and her own self aware of her feelings for him, and the complication of their situation.
I loved watching their relationship growth.
Beside that, I loved reading about their writing process and journeys.
Since I read an ARC, I am not sure if my copy was messed up or if it had two different ends to the story, and that is why I can't give it full 5 stars. I guess I'll have to wait for the finished copies to see what the case is.
If it is the case of two different endings, then I think the one with only January and Gus is the better one.
Overall, Beach Read was an amazing story and I would recommend it to romance, general fiction and women's fiction lovers who are looking for a new, light hearted and relaxing read.

Beach Read is the romance I've been waiting for for years. It's witty, heartwarming, emotional without going the melodramatic way.... Really, a perfect book in my eyes. The two main characters, January and Gus, are super likable AND relatable. Also, their chemistry is out of this world. I will definitely One-Click anything else that Emily Henry writes!

Augustus and January (both named for months, although neither of them ever mentions this commonality) were college writing classmates and rivals, but haven't seen each other since. Until January moves into her late father's beach house on Lake Michigan to recover from a breakup and write her next book, and guess who lives next door? She can't believe her bad luck. He's condescending about her women's fiction novels, and she's annoyed by his literary pretensions. When the two make a bet that they can better write the other's genre, the fingers start to fly over the laptops. And the notes start back and forth through their windows.
This was bittersweet and funny and redemptive, definitely more relationship fiction than romance. Gus and January both have a lot of baggage from their families and past relationships, and they have to decide whether they can trust each other. I was rooting for both of them.

Two books in a row? Is this the end of my book slump? I will hope so. I'm about to start my third one so hopefully all goes well and I am back.
Beach Read... what can I say about this book without crumbling into a mess? Because for sure, this book made me a mess, with its beautiful writing and perfect descriptions, with its amazing romance and with the powerful journey these two characters took throughout the whole book. There are secrets, hope, forgiveness, memories, to sort but at the end of this journey you find the light in the darkness. January and Gus made me complete and are my favorite thing for this month.
I never thought I would love this so much. When I first saw this book, I never really put so much attention to it, I really thought it was literary fiction! That it had no romance. But when I started to see romance readers and trusted bloggers said it was amazing and that they loved the romance inside these pages, I was like wait just a minute, I kinda want to read this. I was blessed with a copy from Berkley and so here I am, long after reading the last chapter, the last page, the last word. And Emily Henry wrote my favorite 2020 book.
It's perfect for romance readers, and writers, because the main character, January, is a romance writer herself. She is having some writer's block, needs to write a new book in three months and doesn't know what to do. She's also dealing with the death of her dad, this new house she's living in and her next door neighbor who just so happens to be her college rival, Gus. Gus is a writer as well though! He writes literary fiction and his book couldn't be more different than what January writes. He has a lot of secrets and January has a lot of things to figure out. They really shouldn't fall in love, but slowly they do.
I talk about the small moments. The moments that matter to me. And this book has them; a lot of them. Hand holding, touching their hip/waist with your fingertip without even noticing you're doing it, those moments make a romance a good romance for me. January and Gus start this friendship with them and it's with the help of those moments and the deep talks and the being there for that person that leads them to find something in each other that they have never had before. In between bets (because they have a bet of writing each other's genre! and if they sell their new book they can gloat about it forever), this romance takes form and has a story inside that will enchant you very quickly.
Note: One thing that I'm really eh about... Gus is decribed with olive skin. Look at that cover. He's clearly white.

A+ romance! Everything about the book was such an unexpected treat. In addition to smoking hot chemistry between January and Gus, their witty banter was what made this book work so well for me. Seeing both characters' perspectives on the writing process was very cool too. I also appreciated the author's note at the end of the story that gave insight into how Beach Read came into existence. This is a very easy book to recommend. I loved seeing the evolution of the relationship between January and Gus, Thank you for the review copy.

Beach Read by Emily Henry is a witty rom-com perfect for summer! This is the first book I have read by Emily Henry and I really enjoyed it. January Andrews, a romance author, and Augustus Everett, acclaimed author of literary fiction, have been rivals since college and are now neighbors, at least for the next three months. Both are suffering from writer's block and strike a deal to swap genres - January will write the next Great American Novel and Gus will write a story with a happily ever after ending. What starts as a friendly competition leads to much more...
Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an advance digital review copy in exchange for a review.

I picked up Beach Read looking for something light and flirty to help me escape from this stressful pandemic time. While I did enjoy the romance and humour, I was surprised by the emotional depth and warmth this book would bring. Emily Henry did a wonderful job of taking romance tropes that feel familiar, and breathing new life into them by making them feel more realistic than in any romance novel I have read in recent memory. January's journey to understand her father's years long infidelity and how it reframed her childhood felt relatable and very real. Her painful journey was carefully examined and not rushed. Sometimes in romance novels the pain or struggle of the heroine can be brushed over to make room for the lighter love scenes and happy ending - and the result is they lack depth. Not so with Beach Read.
Henry also does something different with Gus. While he starts out as the moody, misunderstood artist (that we know has a secret soft heart!), she reveals the pain he has lived through in such a tender way. She encourages the reader to genuinely care about his struggles, and cheer when he is able to overcome them. However he doesn't overcome all at once, or in a way that suddenly makes him into the typical romantic leading man. He grows in a natural flawed way, that gave me genuine hope that people in my life could work through their pain in a similar way, and open themselves up to love again.
Would absolutely recommend.

I was expecting cute, funny, light, playful. Instead Beach Read is romantic, touching, and witty. I really enjoyed it despite it going in an unexpected direction. I definitely recommend this book for romance lovers.