This book made me smile while I was reading for most of the book, and then almost cry. Emily Henry does an amazing job at creating beautifully flawed, real and sympathetic characters. I loved Gus and January's banter, their honesty and chemistry.
I loved every page of this book, so if you were thinking of preordering this book, do it!

Much like my Saturday, I spent Easter Sunday in the garden flying through another brilliant book. Beach Read by @emilyhenrywrites is the absolute summer read, fun, fast-paced and full of romance. Overall it's utterly charming, a beautiful love story and the perfect escape, and if we're ever allowed to go to on holiday again then this is a sure fire pool-side read that I hope you love as much as I did. If you enjoyed One Day in December then this is one for you. It would make a great film, the perfect rom-com! The book comes out in July, so look out for it. Thank you @netgalley and @vikingbooksuk for the arc copy, loved it!!

Actual rating: 4.5

It has been a long time since I read a good, feelsy book with amazing chemistry and just the right amount of push and pull between the characters. I also loved the fact that the plot wasn't typical as other books in this genre when they have a breakup and then one of them realises they actually love the other, then they do a big gesture etc etc. Its just a love story between Gus and January and its beautiful.

The cover says it all, a perfect beach read. I like how the main characters have history and I think that adds to the story! The book has everything a story should, give it a try and see what you think.

Well wasn't that just a bundle of delight 💐

Let me make this clear: romance is 100% not my genre. It makes me want to gag.
But this was just charming, light hearted and fun. Just absolutely perfect for a sunny day ☀️

I found the book a little slow to start with but once I’d read a few chapters I was glad I carried on reading it. A story about 2 people who went to school together and have both become writers of very different styles of fiction. By a turn of fate they end up being neighbours. There’s a lot of emotions packed into the book, family secrets, grief, betrayal, writing blocks and eventually a happy ending.

Loved this book. Great characters, easy read, uplifting, funny, romantic and charming. A really nice story that is the perfect escapist read.

A curmudgeonly literary fiction writer who doesn't believe in love and a hopelessly romantic writer of romance end up as beach house neighbours while suffering writers block. January has spent her whole life searching for her happily ever after, while Gus is a cynic when it comes to love. To him, life is all doom and gloom. So when the pair strike up a bet to take on each other's genre to bet the block, things could get very interesting.

This was very cute, and surprisingly really enjoyable. I think to make any romantic novel work well, the characters really need to stand out and draw the reader in. Thankfully in this, case, both January and Gus are well developed and interesting leads. January has recently suffered several major blows in her life, leading her to question everything she thought she knew about love and her life. She feels very adrift, lost, and it was great to see her character development throughout the novel. Gus starts off as your stereotypical moody male lead, the opposite to January's 'fairy princess' persona, but he's deeper than that. We get to explore his back story along with January, and see how damaged he is, and why he's so against love. The chemistry between the two is very sexy. Even just the hand holding and touching, gives off a definite heat in the story. The tension is good, the connection between them strong and I really enjoyed seeing this connection grow stronger as the story progressed.

I will say that at times the text verges on cheesy, with clichéd comments that sometimes made my eyes roll. I also wasn't that fond of the cult subplot. It felt very much like a plot device to just drive the characters towards each other and instigate some conversations. It felt a bit contrived. I think I would have liked to have seen the characters in a wider range of scenarios, much like January's dates, as I felt these were more integral to the plot and explored more of the characters feelings. The same could probably said of January's father and that subplot. I felt it didn't really add much to the story, and for a long time it's pushed to the background meaning I forgot about the letter he leaves her until the end - lessening the effect.

This was a cute read, with some great sexual tension between the characters, but I found a lot of the plot itself a little too contrived for my taste. However, this is great escapism.

ahhhh this was so amazing as soon as I started reading this book I knew I was onto a winner with this one!!! before reading I had a gut feeling I would love it but ooo this just went above my expectations and definitely when it gets released will be the best time to read it!!! summer vibes for sure.

January and Gus for sure are now two of my favourite characters!!! the traits and the overall attributes of both of them I loved so much from when they were both just having that flirty sarcastic banter when they first meet each other all the way to just being so cute together on their little weekend adventures trying to set the scenes for their stories.

the little references and nudges to certain movies or songs were so good to especially when they have that iconic Taylor swift music video moment which as soon as it happened I was like omg this is just exactly like that Taylor Swift song...

with the cuteness of this book we also so get some beautiful emotive moments too throughout with both main character dealing with issues that they have just wanted to keep at bay and away from each... but we do see lovely moments throughout of the characters just confiding in each other wether at one of their homes or on the beach.

such a amazing, sweet, beautiful, adorable romance novel this was.it truly Is now a favourite romance of mine and can we get a sequel :)

Super easy to read but delightfully clever, this really is the perfect beach read, imagining lazy sunsets and beachy evenings. January and Gus have a tiny bit of history, and theirs is a true love story and hope after lost love and broken promises. Walt’s story is a lovely juxtaposition too and really well done.

I loved this! I was expecting light and fluffy and whilst it was in many ways, it also had substance, tricky relationships and loss. The sub plots of family relationships made this more interesting than the average holiday read and likeable characters made you root for them to have a happy ending.

A lovely story of fate bringing two people together after first meeting in college.

I liked that there was a couple of sub-plot stories that were just as captivating as the main storyline.

A great read. Well written to the extent that I could visualise the two main characters as they went about their day to day activities, writing and messaging. This story had sad moments, funny moments and was built from problems that caused the two to become neighbours. I would recommend this as a perfect lockdown read.

Lockdown in the blazing spring sun Beach Read is the closest I’m getting to the beach for a while. This is the perfect holiday book and I can see it being a popular read this summer.

January and Gus are both successful yet struggling writers. Their own lives are getting into the way if their creativity.

January is a very positive person. She’s grown up in a loving and supportive family. She is generous, thoughtful and her self-confidence means she works hard for her success. But losing her father and breaking up with her long term perfect boyfriend have left her with serious writer’s block. As a romance writer she can’t write a happy ending that she doesn’t believe it.

Gus is brooding and thoughtful, writing great American novels and hiding away into the house next door.

Their romantic relationship is inevitable, but there is a lot of fun and of course misunderstandings along the way.

January’s story and the secrets that are revealed set this about an average romance novel. I’m not going to spoil it, but her relationships with her parents is central to the book and I really enjoyed. Her father’s letters are particularly poignant.

Overall this is an enjoyable romance that is perfect for the summer. It’s not afraid to make fun of the romance genre while also utilising lots of the cliches and tropes of the romance genre.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

For the past two weeks, perhaps even longer, I haven't been able to read. The closest I've got is listening to audiobooks but that's mostly because that's one of my surefire ways to actually fall asleep at a decent hour. I really wanted to read, to get out the funk, but I couldn't. (This context becomes relevant later).
I thought a fun, light read might ease me back into reading so I looked through all the books I had, and realised I had Beach Read. I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and I remembered liking the plotline. Two writers swap genres for a bet over the summer - but the book is about a bit more than that. It's about writing, writer's block, why we write and how we write; it's about grief; it's about the stigma surrounding 'women's fiction' and how gender plays a part in defining a novel's genre and audience - and value; it's about how we can never really know someone; it's about love. The enemies- to- lovers trope was done really well in the novel and the characters felt very fleshed out. I started reading the novel yesterday and finished it today; this in the context of my reading block is quite impressive. The book was fun. The plot was fun. It was definitely escapist fiction which I needed. But I do feel like the themes in the book could have been done better; with a lighter hand, or with more focus, or something. I've been reading lots of meta romance/women's fiction, where the book discusses the genre it's a part of and I find that so interesting but I don't think it's done entirely well in this novel. I think it's frustrating because I can see what the book could have been but then wasn't. I'm probably asking too much of the book, thing that this book never said it was going to do, but I still felt like it didn't deliver on nuances. At the end of the day, it was still a very conventional romance novel, with conventional tropes and ending done well. I also gave the book 3 stars because I did find myself rolling my eyes every now and again which is never a good sign for any novel. It's a fun book - but not an amazing book. But I am grateful that it got me out my reading block.

I loved this book. January was a great narrator and watching her deal with the emotional fall out of her father’s death, his affair and its impact on her world view felt very real and believable. I really enjoyed her and Gus together as well. The chemistry between the two felt very palpable. I really liked the writing style and it was very easy to get into the story, Will definitely be reading more from this author.

I was expecting this to be a light fluffy read (not my usual genre, but who doesn't need light and fluffy sometimes?) - but it was a different kettle of fish. At times yes it was light and fluffy, but at other times venturing into the dark, sad corners lurking round the edges of the main characters' lives.

On the whole an engaging and enjoyable read with some excellent characters and an interesting plot. Have to admit to skipping past the various "physical" encounters in the book (as I usually do, TMI in my humble opinion!).

The book is more of a "substantial" read than a beach read, so I'd have gone with a different title, but what do I know :-)

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC. All opinions my own.

★★★✰✰ 3 stars

Romance enthusiasts will undoubtedly enjoy Emily Henry's Beach Read. While I do enjoy romance books, I usually prefer them to be less cheesy...and while certain scenes or lines in Beach Read did make me smile, it wasn't quite the 'laugh-out-loud' read I was hoping it would be.

This is yet another novel that seems to hint at an 'enemies-to-lovers' romance but in actuality the two leads are never truly enemies or hostile towards each other. January, our lead and narrator, has a bit of a chip on her shoulder when it comes to Augustus. While they were in college Augustus made a comment that January interpreted as disparaging both her person and her writing. Years later the two find themselves living in the same town.
January needs a place to write her novel. Not only is she financially 'broke', but her boyfriend recently broke up with her. January, who is still grieving the loss of her dad, has few options lefts, so she decides to move into her father's secret home. As she tries to make sense of the secret life her father kept, she finds it hard to envision writing a story with a 'happy ending'.
January is quite 'shocked' to discover that her new neighbour is Augustus, aka Gus. She is sort of envious that his books are seen as 'highbrow' whereas hers are dismissed as 'women's fiction'. The two strike up a deal: January will write a book without her trademark 'happy ending' while Gus will try to write a 'happy' book.

While I liked the premise of this book I soon found myself rolling my eyes at its cliches: Gus has an 'inky gaze', a 'crooked' smile, he is 'tall' and 'dark'. January's backstory with her father was rather superficial: she feels betrayed, that much she states early on. Other than that I found that she would often merely rehash her story (her mother had cancer, twice, her father wasn't the man she thought he was, their marriage was far from perfect). Her relationship with people other than Gus were very feeble: she has a best friend who lives in another city so the two of them keep in touch through texts...which were often very silly and seemed to be included only to add humour. Her mother was mentioned now and again but her personality remained undisclosed. We know she had cancer and that she doesn't want to speak about her husband's 'secrets'. It would have been a lot more compelling and challenging if January had actually loved her ex-boyfriend but she admits early on that she loved the idea of them rather than him...which seemed to go against the book's proclaimed self-awareness. Given that January writes romcoms it would have been more refreshing if we were presented with a story in which there isn't such a thing as 'you can only have one true love'...
Gus...he was very much the epitome of the angsty love interest. At one point he says: “I am angry and messed up, and every time I try to get closer to you, it's like all these warning bells go off”....which yeah, who says stuff like this? And how is this romantic?
Not only does Gus have an appropriately Troubled Backstory™ but he is just sooooo angsty. Just because his eyes are 'flashing' or he smirks a lot doesn't negate how annoying his 'you can't possibly understand me/I am a walking tragedy' thing he has going is.
Most of his lines sounded unbelievable. At one point he tells January that she is “so fucking beautiful” and “like the sun”. Like, wtf man.

Another thing that I was hoping would receive more focus was their books. January once says that if she were to swap her 'Janes' for 'Johns', her books would no longer be labelled as 'women's fiction' but as 'fiction'...which is a statement I don't entirely agree on. There are lots of female authors who write books with female protagonists that do not fall under the 'women's fiction' category. Perhaps January should have been asking herself why certain genres are seen as inferior to others, or why the 'chick-lit' is seen as 'rubbishy' whereas the popular books by male authors (such as James Patterson) are not similarly dismissed.
There a few paragraphs of January's own writing which were really cringe-y. I could not take her 'serious' story seriously, it was ridiculous. Also, why perpetuate this stereotype of the writer only being able to write about their own lives?

January is immediately attracted to Gus, so there is never a slow build up from friends to lovers. During their first few scenes together her stomach is already 'flip flopping'.
Their make out/sex scenes were...okay I guess (?). Although I've read far worse there was one scenes which was just yuck-y: one moment January compares herself to a 'toddler' sitting on Gus' lap, the next they are making out. Most of their flirting revolves around 'junk food' which yeah, I am not a huge fan of this 'bonding over our mutual love of donuts'. It just strikes me as juvenile.

For the most part I didn't particularly hate or love this book. I do enjoy reading 'feel good' books (some of my faves are by Sophie Kinsella and Mhairi McFarlane) but Beach Read didn't really work for me. I guess I was excepting a more 'subversive' take on the romance genre...but here there are tropes upon tropes.

I received a free ebook version of this book from Netgalley. Thankyou to both Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this! My review is still honest.
Beach Read is a romance novel following January and Gus, who were rivals in college and have now found themselves years later living next door to each other for the summer after January’s father passes. Both have their secrets and issues to work through, and both need to finish novels. They agree to swap genres for a bet and see who sells their book first.
This book is brilliant at capturing how it feels to fall in love. It shows the progression of their relationship so well and just brings to life how they gradually begin to care and have feelings for one another. Gus is such a great love interest too-he’s more vulnerable than a lot of love interests I’ve read about, and also quite reasonable. His tragic past doesn’t mean he mistreats January at any point, which is a mistake a lot of romances make for me.
Romance aside, this book also deals heavily with grief and loss, and January’s very complex feelings surrounding the death of her father as his secrets are revealed after his passing. It’s very skilfully done and I think for anyone that has lost someone close to them, this book will resonate.
It deals with the tropes and stereotypes surrounding ‘women’s fiction’ and the expectations of romance as a genre as not being good literature or requiring skill to write. As a romance fan myself, this is something I feel very passionate about! There’s also an interesting little sideplot surrounding cults, which isn’t a big part at all, but that I found fascinating.
This isn’t the full 5 stars for me for a couple of reasons. I think this book dragged on a little too long at the end and I didn’t really understand why they were still having issues, as there didn’t appear to be any! I didn’t get the same level of swooniness I get from my absolute favourite romance novels, although that is a high bar to reach for me. I also had an issue with the eARC that I had of this, and I’m unsure if it was a formatting error or if it was intentional (if it was an error, I will remove this section of the review after contacting the publisher). The very last chapter showed 2 scenes simultaneously, as in it would have 2 sentences or so of one, then of the other, til the end of the book. As I say, I’m not sure if this was just an error with the file, but if it was intentional, it really doesn’t work! It was very, very difficult to keep track of each plotline and not carry on reading the wrong one, and it did spoil the ending for me.

This was fun! It's a great premise and the characters are believable and interesting. I was hoping for a little more resolution at the end, though. I felt the main character needed to go a bit further in terms of denouement. I definitely wanted a deeper resolution with her mother. By contrast, the section with her father's letters was far far too long.