thank you so much to berkeley books for sending me this arc!

4/5 stars for me!

i think i’m truly becoming an emily henry fan! i love the writing style of this book! she really hones into character development and plot development, and i’m not used to that but i really like it. poppy & alex’s relationship is complicated to say the least, but it’s very interesting to see how the chapters alternate to understand how they got to the point that they’re at. i like stories like this that truly embrace what it is to be confused with life and yourself. this reminds me a lot of beach read and i’m a fan! i need an alex in my life please and thank you!

Oh my gosh. This book is so amazingly good. It broke my heart, picked up the pieces, and broke them all over again. I love that this book has so many tropes. Tropes are familiar and give me comfort and we had road trip, forced proximity, friends to lovers... this story was like being wrapped in a weighted blanket. It calmed me and centered me and made me feel so much. I loved Poppy to death and Alex was just so steady and almost as quirky as Poppy in his own way. I just can't stop thinking about this book. The last book I loved as much as this one was "Beach Read." Emily Henry is on a roll.

unfortunately I was a little disappointed by this one, or at least a little confused about what this was supposed to be. It was marketed as a friends to lovers romance but felt more like women’s fiction with a romantic subplot, which is of course fine, but since I was expecting it to be a romance it was kind of bummer. I do think a lot of people will really enjoy it! It just wasn’t for me.

The majority of the book was just about the friendship. And maybe it’s because of how out of order the timeline was, jumping around over the past decade, but it just didn’t particularly feel like it was building towards anything romantic for the most part. There were hints of course, but with how disjointed the timeline was, we’d get a small hint, then the next chapter was something entirely different with different circumstances.

It felt like if just one of them would have been honest with the other about how they felt, they could have resolved this about two years into the book. Instead, they made themselves and each other miserable with the unrequited love and hiding of feelings and it just kept going and going.

I love travel books but this felt a little like being held hostage by some couple who won’t stop talking about their past vacations when all you want to know is about their recent trip. I just wanted to find out what happened in Croatia and what’s happening now, I didn’t need a decade of pining to get there.

It did pick up for me around the 70% mark but by that point I didn’t care anymore, I was exhausted and just wanted to be done.I did like the end! I just can’t overlook the 70% of the book I didn’t care for.

I read and loved BEACH READ, like many others, but I know that was somewhat polarizing. Lots of readers didn’t think it was really a rom-com, since it centered around some heavier family or career-related elements, and the cover doesn’t totally match the vibe. However, I adored it for what it was and that whole thing didn’t affect my enjoyment whatsoever. I had really high hopes and expectations for PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION as a result.

Oh MAN, did this book deliver. Complete banter-y perfection. I saw a few people call Emily Henry’s writing “witty” and that’s such a great way to describe it. The characters in this book especially were so hilarious. I adored getting to know Poppy, Alex, and all of their inside jokes. The story follows the two of them after a two-year friendship hiatus. It goes back and forth between ten summer trips they’ve taken across ten years, and the present day vacation in Palm Springs. It recounts their many years of friendship, where their annual summer trips are the key grounding point in their relationship. There are always tiny hints of what-if-we-were-more, but the two of them also have a few relationships with other people to navigate as well. You also spend most of the book what happened during the dreaded Croatia trip that made them stop speaking for two years.

Poppy is so unique and her family life fascinated me. Her parents and brothers sounded wonderful and quirky. She had a fun sense of style and a passion for travel and writing that led to her career with a travel magazine. She met Alex at college even though they lived in the same town (they went to different high schools). He is completely different than her in most ways but you can really tell how she brings out the weird in him, in the best possible way. He also has an interesting family dynamic that I enjoyed exploring, especially through his brother’s wedding that takes place during the book too.

The two of them started taking cheap trips during college and kept up the annual tradition, regardless of how much (or how little!) money they could spend. Over time, as Poppy started blogging about travel and then working at the magazine, the trips got bigger and more expensive. They go back to their roots during the Palm Springs trip and try to make it budget-friendly for old times sake.

The amount of banter and inside jokes in this book was on another level. I read this a lot at night while Chris was asleep and I’m genuinely surprised I didn’t wake him up multiple times from laughing. The ending was so sweet and perfect for the two of them. I cannot recommend this book enough if you want to goofy-smile the entire time you’re reading.

PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION by Emily Henry is a pretty good rom com! It’s about two best friends Poppy and Alex who take summer vacations together every year and the will they won’t they fall in love with each other. I liked the structure to the storyline with the alternating timelines between past and present. I felt there was no surprise at all in this book and it was kinda the same things happening again and again. I enjoyed reading about their trips and all the different locations they went to especially Vancouver Island. I didn’t fully engage with their relationship and just didn’t love these characters. I’m still looking forward to reading Beach Read!
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Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley for my advance review copy!

People We Meet on Vacation is the new book by Beach Read author Emily Henry.
Poppy and Alex are close friends who vacation together. Year after year, their friendship changes and their lives go separate ways, but they still have their yearly vacation to reconnect. Life gets in the way, but will they find a way to mend their friendship or are they meant to be more?

I liked, but didn't love, Beach Read (but many people LOVED it). I liked this book much more. I thought the two main characters were more deeply written and the storyline was more fun and engaging. The time jumping was easy to follow and made sense to the structure of the book and I loved all the traveling talk, whether on a budget or work funded.

My main stumbling point with this book is the title! People We MEET on Vacation- the book is mostly about two people who ALREADY know each other, going on vacation together. They do NOT meet while on vacation. The title is brought around later in the book while discussing the OTHER people they've met, but it is not the basis of the book. This really bothered me! (As in Beach Read- it was NOT set at the beach, it was a lake! Why are her titles so bad???) I do love her book covers, which are fun and vibrant. I'm just stuck on her misnamed titles (as I the only one?)

I enjoyed this new book by Emily Henry and loved all the trips they took. Who doesn't want to be a travel journalist? I was happy to see the less-glamorous side of this job and it made me happy that even a dream job has down sides. I also love a tricky coed friendship and a "will they/won't they" romance.

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for the advance reader copy and the chance to review this book.

I almost gave up on this book, but it pulled itself back at the end, thankfully, and while I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either. It's an homage to When Harry Met Sally, so it's told in flashback/flash forward style. I didn't love the flashbacks, because I wasn't feeling them adding new twists or ratcheting the tension between these two characters as much as I needed them to to get invested.

The book also commits something of a cardinal sin for me, which is to have an event known to the characters but held from the reader and teased constantly. It's just not a storytelling trick I appreciate, and in this book, we are constantly being told that ~something~ happened in Croatia, and when we get there, it's not what it's been built up to be, at least for me.

In the end, I felt like we got there, like the conflict between these two was finally laid out in a way I could appreciate and worked out satisfactorily. But I didn't love the deception plot or the amount of monologuing. So a real mixed bag for me!

There's also a weird thing that makes me feel like maybe it's just me but so far both of Emily Henry's books have had more scatalogical humor than I ever want to read?

Emily Henry DOES IT AGAIN!!! I read this book in one sitting and stayed up until 1:30am on a work night to finish it. I haven't been totally sucked into a book like that in SO LONG and it was just *chefs kiss*

I absolutely adored Poppy and Alex and thought their dynamic was utterly fantastic. Their dialogue and banter is some of the best I've seen in a book. I'm normally ambivalent about flashback chapters but in this book I LOVED them. I loved seeing Alex and Poppy grow up together. More characters in their 30s, please!

I also really enjoyed the deeper emotional aspects of this book. I was teary eyed for most of the last 20%. It wasn't quite as dark as Beach Read but I resonated more with the topics explored in this book, like loneliness and the absence of happiness and deep, intense friendships.

I felt like the tie in to the title could have been a little stronger, i.e. I would have liked to see more of the people they met on vacation, but I understand why those people were not the focus of the book (it is a romance after all). But the little snippets we did get of them were delightful. Emily Henry has a natural talent for writing characters that read like real people without feeling like caricatures.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I loved how it alternated between past summer trips and the current one.

I just loved reading about Poppy and Alex’s travels, and the fun activities they did. Perhaps it was also reading this after a year of no travel, but this gave me such wanderlust.

This was a sweet, low steam romance & I’d definitely recommend to anyone who wants to get a little travel fix.

This contemporary romance is founded on a strong premise and interesting, relatable characters, but the execution occasionally becomes repetitive or falls flat. Poppy is a travel writer who looks forward every year to the summer trip she takes with her best friend Alex, but, after a falling out that is left unknown to the reader for most of the book, Poppy just hopes their upcoming trip will be enough to repair their friendship and reinvigorate her love for her job. Readers get to know Poppy and Alex through flashbacks to their previous trips, beginning when they met in college, along with the present day narrative of their reconnection and self-reflection

This book boasts moments of brilliant dialogue and banter, captivating descriptions of travel destinations, and plenty of interesting characters met along the way. On the other hand, the tension that is meant to be building between Alex and Poppy, and the anticipation to find out what happened to interrupt their friendship, never seems to find the power its seeking; throughout the whole novel, Alex and Poppy ending up together feels like a foregone conclusion and the revelation that it was the potential of intimacy that drove them apart a few years prior is wholly unsurprising. Overall, People We Meet on Vacation is a fun beach read with some real heart, but it may hold some readers at arm’s length.

This book is so sweet and heartwarming! It’s the perfect summer read that makes you feel happy the whole way through.

In a lot of ways, I feel like this premise has been written about before but there’s definitely uniqueness to the characters that don’t feel replicated. The dual timelines fit the story well.

My critique is I didn’t really like the climax... I felt it was a bit forced for drama near the end.

Recommend if you enjoy: The Simple Wild, Bromance Book Club

I enjoyed People We Meet On Vacation. I loved the visuals that she gave us of each vacation and I really liked how we watched Alex and Poppy's relationship grow and change with each week long adventure. However, it takes me so long to get into Henry's books. I don't know if it's because she is so great at developing her characters and relationships, but the build up is so very slow that I almost give up then am so glad that I didn't. The pay off is worth the wait, but that slow burn is very real in her books. If you loved Beach Read, definitely pick this one up. The emotions are so completely different and in a great way. The vacations, the friendships, the families and history are just exactly what we need right now.

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley for the opportunity to read and review this prior to release. All opinions expressed are my own. Pub Date = 5/11/21.

What an amazing book to read about love and travel during a pandemic. This is an homage to When Harry Met Sally. Poppy and Alex are complete opposites and met at college orientation. Each summer they take a vacation together, until the one after which they stopped speaking. The storyline is not linear - each chapter told from a different point in time, so it takes a little while to figure out where things went wrong. This was brilliant and kept the pages turning. It was also laugh-out-loud funny at many points and also devastating at others. Perfect "light" rom-com that left me thinking for a while after.

I didn't think she could top Beach Read, but Henry has become an auto-read author for me.

This was fun, but I loved Beach Read way more. Did it feel a bit like the sex scenes were too tame? Maybe. (I so loved the sex against the bookshelf last time that nothing could compare). Did it feel like the big drama build up was not really a thing? Perhaps? But overall, it was just enjoyable, not an #omgfavorite.

So this was an adorable best friends to lovers suuuuuper slow burn rom-com. I LOVED Poppy and Alex’s relationship, the dialogue in this is hilarious and got quite a few laugh out loud moments from me. My only comment I think is there wasn’t enough people met on vacation? In the end, Poppy realized she loves traveling because of all the people she met on her travels, I wish there had been more quirky people to really solidify that part of the story. There are hints of people here or there, a few main ones, but I wish there were a few more focused on to make it even more fun! But overall, I thought this was a great read for rom-com lovers. I actually liked this a lot better than Beach Read.

I loved this book so much. I loved Poppy. I loved Alex. I loved every single trip they took together. This was one of those stories that I anticipate will give me a book hangover for weeks. It reminded me of the movie, When Harry Met Sally, but on vacation (that description will make more sense once you read it). I am not easily wowed by romance novels any more, (reading so many of them makes you a tough critic) but this book wowed me. I loved it “down to my bones.”

I ugly cried reading Beach Read, and I ugly cried reading this one too. Emily Henry has a gift for writing those scenes where you so precisely feel the main character’s pain and heartbreak.

I liked this book better than I liked Bench Read. Alex felt more real to me, in some ways realer than Poppy (although this is in large part Poppy’s defense mechanism). The story unfolds interspersing the present with the past twelve years of Summer Trips, so you get glimpses of them throughout the years, which helps you understand how they change and how they don’t.

What was hardest for me to get into was the suspension of disbelief about the facts. Poppy’s travel writer job doesn’t exist like that in the real world, not really, anymore. So the book always felt set in a fantasy world, which is hard to overcome when Henry focuses on little details. I kept thinking, “you focus on getting this right but also there are these magical travel writer jobs at magazines run by a more benevolent Miranda Priestly who choose vacation spots on a whim, not advertising dollars. These didn’t even exist in the years leading up to the pandemic.” And then Poppy’s other job that’s mentioned? Even more fantastical.

Still well worth reading. The chemistry between Poppy and Alex zings.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I think Emily Henry and I would be best friends. Her sarcastic sense of humor is absolutely THE BEST. I can honestly say that there are really only two books I have ever read that ACTUALLY made me laugh out loud. Those two books are Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation - both by Emily Henry!

Emily, if you’re reading this: you are the Alex to my Poppy (Or vice versa. I don’t want to make this weird). You know... without the 5% - 15% issues.

I devoured this book quickly, even though I wanted to savor it a little longer.

I. Just. Couldn’t. Wait.

Poppy and Alex are so very different, and yet, they just work. They are best friends. And they spend every summer vacationing somewhere new and having the time of their lives.

Except that sometimes friendships change. And theirs does a few times... sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse.

YOU NEED TO READ THIS! You will definitely shed a few tears, you will laugh, and you will cheer, and if you’re like me, you may just blush a bit, too.

Throughout the entire book, I had ONE ending in mind and I was going to be SO mad if that’s not how it ended. It did NOT end how I wanted it to, BUT I thought the ending was great, anyway. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I will be posting this on my Instagram for the blog tour on May 11!

What an absolutely wonderful book! Reading about travel (sigh) and a romance that felt real and true--and wow, can Emily Henry write dialogue! I've loved her writing since her YA novels, but moving to smart, funny and sizzling chemistry romances has been a gift for us all. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but People We Meet On Vacation is a well-written and wonderful tale of love, friendship, and everything between. This will be the beach/virtual beach read of the summer for sure!

For over a decade, Alex and Poppy have taken their Summer Trip together, at least until two years ago. When challenged to remember the last time Poppy was really happy, all she could think of was Alex and that last Summer Trip. In an attempt to recapture the magic and restore their friendship, she plans a trip-on-a-budget in a nod to those early excursions, and in hopes that it can reunite them.

I will describe this book using one word: PERFECTION. I have always found Henry's books brilliant and entertaining, but this was a masterpiece for me. Let me list the ways.

1. Friends-to-Lovers is my favorite tropes, and it was done so well in this book. I loved flipping back and forth on the timeline and seeing this friendship take root and blossom. It was tough watching Poppy resist her feelings in fear of losing her best friend, but I knew it would be worth the pain.

2. The Summer Trips were so great even when they were disasters. There is nothing I enjoy more than going on a trip, and I got to go on one every summer with these two. Like their friendship, these trips evolved. They gradually went from super budget to lush and lavish. Regardless, they were all great to read about, and they temporarily sated my wanderlust.

3. The story spans years. It's such a treat to get the opportunity to see people grow and change over long periods of time. I knew so much about Poppy and Alex, that by the end of this book, they felt like friends of mine. Delving into their history, sharing their failures and successes, being there for big and small events in their lives made this a truly rich experience for me.

4. Henry is the queen of banter. I thought this as I read Beach Read, and I am saying it again. She writes some of best dialog I have ever read. I absolutely adored the humor and wit as I savored every line in this book.

5. This was a slow burn that worked for me. I am not necessarily a patient woman, but everything in this story was done so well, I had no problem waiting for this thing to happen. It didn't hurt that so many fantastic tropes were employed during this tale, and that their was lots of pining and tension and almost moments to feed my needs.

6. The When Harry Met Sally vibes were so strong. This was wholly its own story, but those vibes were there, and I welcomed them with open arms.

7. Poppy and Alex were fantastic. Due to all the years I spent with these two, my love ran deep for them. I liked how they were polar opposites, yet perfect together. I loved their loyalty to their families and each other. I felt so much for them and was one thousand percent invested in their relationship.

I think I could go on for days talking about this book, and everyone can expect me to be pushing it big-time. It was everything I could have asked for and more. This book filled me up with feels, fulfilled my heart's desires, and left me basking in the warm-fuzzies for days.