When I started reading this book, I wanted another "Book Lovers" - this is not that kind of book. This book is angsty, a second chance romance with serious "500 Days of Summer" vibes. The dual time line bounces between the current moments in time & the past evolution of their relationship. Emily Henry won me over when just as I was about to pitch the book across the room for being so heart wrenching, she pulled it into a different vibe. The main character navigates growing up, finding herself, navigating friendships and grief and transitions - all things folks experience at some point. How can we grow & change and maintain friendships in the process even across distance? What if our dreams end up being misguided or not what we thought once we attain them - then what?

Heart broken & then put back together - this book won me over.

Thanks for the ARC - this review is mine & I will be handselling it this title & am excited to see how Henry does in HC.

Emily Henry has such a unique way of writing characters—every single one of them has so much heart, and they all manage to jump off the page even with so many intertwined in the story.

I love Emily Henry's writing so much. She writes characters that feel real and feel like friends. Happy Place not only follows Harriet and Wyn, but their four best friends as well. It's a story of friendship, growth, and love.

The ending left me so satisfied but there were parts in the middle that were angsty and messy. I don't know how to pinpoint it, but this felt a little less like a romance to me than her other books. It's not my favorite of hers, but I found it enjoyable and captivating. I loved the friend group and I especially loved the setting of the book.

Okay so I’ve only ever read one other Emily Henry book and it wasn’t my fave but this one did it for me! I LOVED it! I loved the dual timelines. And the relationship between Harriet and Wyn. And the story of friendship.

Happy Place is a second chance romance featuring a diverse friend group who gathers yearly in Maine in their happy place. I’m not sure why but I didn’t love Harriet and Wyn together. I found myself not caring if they got back together or not. Some of the characters were immature and not my favorite Henry characters. Overall a sweet story.

Emily Henry's books are always just the littlest bit magical--but the magic doesn't reside in fantasy but in the little joys and miracles that reside in our connections: connections to friends, family, and partners. Happy Place captures the same charm and heartbreak as her previous novels but I really loved how this book felt more introspective. I really appreciated this story's focus not only on romance, but also on navigating getting older and entering a new phase of life. The friendship of the main trio also really brought a deeper, funny, and loving side to this novel and I would've read a whole book just about them.

I cried. It’s been a while since a book left me a sobbing mess. No joke, it was like a volcano erupting and tears streaming down my face.

From the beginning, the story grabbed my heart and had its grip on it. It was a lot of “is it finally going to happen?” and “why isn’t it happening yet?!” It was an emotional rollercoaster full of longing glances and conversations that should have happened but didn’t. But when everything finally finally fell into place, it’s just made me so happy and I cried tears of joy. It was the perfect ending to this gem of a book.

This is my third 5-Star Emily Henry book... do you know how rare that is? At least for me? I am damn stingy with that last star, so to award it, again, seems like the entire review right there.

BUT I should probably say a few more words...

Everything I love about EH but with new, unique from previous, characters. Smart, deep, emotional but also entertaining and hopeful. I love the exploration of all the friends. The various relationships are amazing, and the main love (and breaking) story at it core is brilliant. But it's also a deep dive into Harriet's psyche and how a person can inadvertently harm others by not putting themself first. I cried, I laughed, I couldn't put it down.

As with all my top rated books, I don't want to say much because I don't want to spoil a thing. I just want you to read it. So go read it!

The Emily Henry formula wins again. Light and frothy enough for the beach, but with the heft of a few serious issues sprinkled to not make it a romance in the traditional style. Harriet and Wyn were a fun couple that I was rooting for the whole way through.

I fell in love by the first three chapters. The overall premise is of a fake relationship, and this is the first time I have ever read this trope and understood the character's choice to pretend to date. Usually it's a flimsy excuse, but if I were in the position the characters are I could actually see myself doing the same thing. This book is filled with good, exciting tension throughout, a lot of unexpected surprises and turns, and the best part is that all of them real and driven by the characters Henry has created. It's not forced, it's not out of nowhere, everything makes sense with satisfying payoff. This is the best thing about this books is its cast of characters. Aside from the main couple there are four others, with the six making up the cutest found family, and all of them seem to have full, rich, interesting lives of their own. I desperately want a sequel from Chloe's perspective! If you like books with characters that feel like real friends, or real people you could know, this one is a winner.

Harriet and Wyn have been together since college for ten years seeming to their intimate group of friends to be the perfect couple. They a big secret: a devastating breakup has not been shared with those same friends because neither has the courage or strength to admit their failure. To complicate matters, the last trip to a beloved Maine cottage is planned where Harriet thinks Wyn will not be there until he is sending her into a major panic.

Harriet avoids controversy at all costs because of a lot of family baggage. Wyn has his own perceived inadequacies to deal with so they have a lot to overcome in order to ever be together again. Wyn had to return to his Montana home to help out an ailing parent which helped foment their breakup five months before where Harriet has a medical residency hundreds of miles away in San Francisco.

To say that Harriet and Wyn’s reunion and forced proximity is tortuous for them both is a vast understatement. Clearly, they still love each other desperately but feel reuniting is impossible under their current circumstances. Harriet is very angry, and a whole lot other of tightly wound emotions, at Wyn for the perceived reasons for their breakup while Wyn cannot seem to stop sending mixed signals. The only thing they can agree on is not telling their friends and spoiling this last vacation in a place that is very special to them all.

In some ways, this book is one big book painfest especially since Ms. Henry’s writing is so thorough at taking this reader on an intense emotive ride. Told in two timelines, Happy Place from the past and Real Life in the present, this story is quite an emotional roller coaster ride. I think it is the most angsty and heartbreaking book from this author I have read. It is in the “smack a character with her own book” territory and suffering along with Harriet and Wyn which shows Ms. Henry’s talent in this story at torturing…er…keeping her readers interested to see how the love story plays out. As Tobias Wolfe once said, memory has its own tale to tell so looking back at the past reengages Harriet and Wyn with why they fell in love and how it all fell apart.

Emily Henry has done it again!!! Just when I think I've found my new favorite book of hers, she goes and writes another one that leaves me breathless. This book made me laugh and cry! I wanted to savor it, but I also desperately wanted to know what happened in the end.

I read along while listening to the audiobook (because Julia Whelan!!) and Whelan gave another superb and emotional narration that left me on the edge of my seat.

This is one I'll read again and again and recommend again and again while I patiently wait for her next one!

Another Emily Henry banger! I love the unexpected twists and the thoughtful revelations. This is a perfect beach read for sure, but it's so much more about friendship & true happiness than just the relationship at the center of the book. Highly recommend!

I loved Henry's previous book, Book Lovers, so I couldn't wait for this one to land in my hands. I approached this one with a giddy anticiaption hoping for some fun, some heart break, and some heart warming relationships.
I am a sucker for second chances. If they're done right, they are everything. This one was done right, mostly. Why mostly? It was drug out jut a little too much for me. And some of the secrets that came out actually had me wanting to roll my eyes. But, as a whole, I really enjoyed this book.
I enjoyed the push and pull between all the characters in the book. They're college friends turned adults. This book took a good look at how our lives drift in and out with those we love the most. We all change and grow up, and sometimes we do grow apart. That's life. And this book does a great job at portraying that.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I didn't love it, but I did like it a lot!

review: happy place by emily henry 💕🏺

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"at my darkest, on my worst days, i'll still love you more than i've ever loved anything else..." 💕🥺

✨ MINI SYNOPSIS ✨

harriet & wyn broke off their engagement 6 months age deciding to keep their separation a secret, as they enjoy a one-week trip to maine with their best friends. after years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?

✨ MY THOUGHTS ✨

⚠️ cw: grief, mental illness, & death of a parent ⚠️

if evermore is your favorite taylor swift album; you love quirky friends, scavenger hunts, lake days second chance romance, forced proximity, fake dating, the one bed trope, & ugly crying this book might be for you!!

alexa play gold rush by taylor swift 🎶

🌟 RATING: ★★★★☆
🥵🔥 spice scale: 🌶️🌶️

raise your hand if you have been personally victimized by emily henry! 🙋🏽‍♀️ oh my gosh, i'm gonna try to be as vague as possible because i really don't want to spoil this book for anyone, but i literally felt two emotions while reading this book: frustration & sadness!! 🤦🏽‍♀️ it was extremely frustrating because harriet & wyn really needed to learn how to communicate. i was constantly having to pause & set my kindle down so i wouldn't fling it across the room. if i had a dollar for every time I yelled "please just talk to each other.."🤣 sadness because it's an extremely beautiful book about growing up, loss and grief and how those things affect not only us, but our relationships with others. it wasn't a good time, but it was a pretty damn good book!! 💕

I LOVED this book. I tried to keep my opinion unbiased going into it (because I love Emily Henry), but she made it so easy to fall in love with her characters and their complexities. Henry delivers an astounding and emotional read about friendship, second chances, and flawed humans making flawed choices. Absolutely one of my favorites of hers!

Emily Henry is back with yet another book that the masses will call the best Emily Henry book. Quite honestly, I'm not a fan of her second chance romances and this one was no exception. for me. I found the reasons for the characters breaking up suspect at best and if you break up under those circumstances and in that way, maybe your relationship is toxic and you shouldn't be in a relationship with one another. I found the pining and longing more a laundry list of physical characteristics and not some undercurrent of LOVE. Yes, this fulfilled the checklist of a romance, but it just wasn't a romance that I bought into.

This was extremely "meh" for me. Emily Henry is a very popular author, and while I appreciate a good second chance romance, I didn't find this particularly compelling. Straight white people being rich and not having necessary conversations just doesn't feel enough for me anymore. I'm sure this will be very popular, and the writing was well done. This just isn't something I'd want to spend money or time on, though it will definitely appear on beaches everywhere this summer, I'm sure.

Do you ever have that one author that you save when you KNOW you need a five star read? Emily Henry is that author for me. I finished Happy Place last week and I absolutely adored it. I’m convinced at this point that Emily Henry can do no wrong!

I’m such a sucker for second chance romance, they’re always filled with that angsty emotional goodness that I love. But I when I say that Happy Place had angst, it had A N G S T! Harriet and Wyn were everything, they had one of those love stories that you feel deep in your chest when you’re reading. Add in the forced proximity and alternating past and present chapters, I simply could not read it fast enough!

Happy Place is the epitome of a perfect “found family” story. Oh my goodness I LOVED this friend group. They felt so real and their relationships were just as emotional and gut wrenching as Harriet and Wyn’s.

Happy Place was easily one of my favorite books so far this year. All the stars!

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reading copy! I am here YET AGAIN blown away by Emily Henry. How does she do it? Every time I read her books, I am like “there is no way she’ll keep churning out hits” but yet, here she is, creating something truly amazing. I guess I will stop doubting her and just read all her books until the end of time. I wasn’t the hugest fan of People We Meet on Vacation, but I LOVED Beach Reads and Book Lovers, and this book is up there with these books in my opinion. Harriet and Wyn are the main love interests in this book, but this book is more than a love story. It’s about creating a found family and at its root, this story is about finding what makes you happy in life. This sounds simple, but Henry delves into this topic in a thoughtful, beautiful, refreshing, and lovely way. This book made me smile and cry, in equal measure, and Henry really understands this balance. Overall, this book felt a little more melancholy than her other books, but not at all in a negative way; it was just very thoughtful and lovely. Like her other hits, I will be raving about and recommending this book for a long time. I HIGHLY recommend this book for fans of Henry, contemporary romance, and reflective fiction.