🌅 Book Review 🌅

Thanks to @berkleyromance for early access to this book. I adored it - all the stars - all the heart eyes .

✔️ Second Chance Romance
✔️ Forced Proximity
✔️ One Bed
✔️ Cinnamon Roll MMC
✔️ Fake Dating
✔️ Found Family

I loved the premise of Happy Place by @emilyhenrywrites as it combines some of my favorite tropes. Second chance + forced proximity + fake dating? = former couple pretend to still be engaged so that they don't spoil their annual vacation with their college friend group who thinks they are still together.

I loved the entire friend group - all such fun characters with convos I feel like I've had with my closest friends. I love couple banter, but friend banter is just as good here.

I adored the couple here too. I love the juxtaposition of then and now so we see early courtship and current estrangement. It was like eating a sour patch kid - alternating bursts of sweet (loveliness of falling for someone) and sour (the still painful aftermath of a breakup when there are still feelings there). Harriet and Wyn were terrific characters, like all protagonists in Emily Henry books. Their convos sparkle (banter to the max) and their steamy scenes were A+.

I loved this one and it is likely to be one of my top reads of this year. 5⭐️.

Steam 🔥🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕💕

“You are in all of my happiest places.”

I fear I will never be in a coherent enough state of mind to put just how much this book means to me into words. Without a doubt, Happy Place is Emily Henry’s best work yet. I wasn’t even aware I was capable of feeling so many emotions, let alone all at once. I never knew air could be this fresh. Infinite stars for this work of art.

I feel like Harriet is a copy-and-paste version of me. I seriously should be sweeping my place for cameras because I cannot fathom how Emily Henry managed to so accurately depict every emotion I’ve had the pleasure, or dismay, of experiencing at this point in my life. She’s so down-to-earth and seeing her bear this resentment toward Wyn seemed so out of character that it made her growth that much more significant.

In our initial introduction to Wyn, I was worried I was going to despise him. After all, how could he break poor Harriet’s heart when she was head over heels in love with him? But the more we got to see glimpses of their past relationship, the fonder my feelings toward him grew. It’s obvious that leaving her hurt him just as much. While Alex, Gus, and Charlie, Henry’s previous male protagonists, were all written beautifully unique, there’s a depth behind Wyn that solidifies his spot as my favorite book boyfriend.

Oh. My. God. The banter. I always knew Emily excelled at it, but good Lord is it amplified in this book. It was just non-stop between the two. It was like watching a tennis match, or what I imagine it would be like. After all, I’m not one for sports. But from the moment they met, it was written in the stars. I stand on the ground that friends are even better lovers. Their dynamic pulled at all my heartstrings and left my mind going in so many different directions. They are the literary definition of the word soulmates. I don’t think I’ve seen two people that belong together more than they do. Their love is overpowering in a way I so rarely see on the page. I could feel the desperation behind their separation. Everything about it was palpable. I wanted to walk straight into their world and somehow get them to come to their senses. But all good things take time.

I think this is what Leo Tolstoy meant when he wrote War and Peace. It was war, but there was peace. I am an advocate for excessive angst and let me tell you, miss Henry absolutely served. All of the second-chance romance girlies are absolutely thriving right now. She is my Michelangelo. Everything she writes is pure gold. There were so many moments where I thought to myself, oh they’re gonna go crazy over this. I don’t mean that casually. I mean the book community is going to go feral, as they should.

I mean, let’s get real. What is in the water she’s drinking that gives her these magical capabilities? Consider this my written permission, or rather my formal proposal, for her to write my eulogy. The only words I want on my gravestone are the words of Emily Henry.

Shoutout to her for properly depicting mental illness on page. She never uses it as a guilt harboring tactic. There’s always a purpose behind it and while it does motivate some of the characters' choices, it doesn’t own the wheel, driving them wherever it pleases. She put so much care into her research, and perhaps even personal experience, and it reads that way. As someone that struggles with some of these diagnoses’, it makes me feel a little less alone knowing it isn’t a flaw that my favorite characters would see right through, but rather a unifying aspect that makes us stronger than we already are. Her portrayal of not only loneliness, but silence, brought me to the edge. It’s the kind of pain you only know how to describe after experiencing it.

“My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing each other so well you don’t need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.”

The friendships in this is what sealed the deal for me. To my core, I am a found family lover and naturally, being the all-knowing entity she is, Emily Henry delivered. I have such a deep appreciation for the way they started as a group of three and ended as a group of six. Their partners weren’t see as enemies coming to conquer land, but rather allies. The more the merrier. Each and every one of them added so much value to the group and I can’t imagine a world where all six of them aren’t together, tied by some invisible string.

The writing is of the same caliber, even better if that’s even possible, but there’s a sense of realness about it that makes it resonate all the more with readers like myself. It was all about perspective and the connections we share on both platonic and romantic levels.

Those acknowledgements made me absolutely sob. It’s clear she appreciates all of her readers, down to the very last one.

As an avid 4.9 star rater and one-time reader, I can say with ease that this is not only a five star read, but one that I wanted to re-read not even a quarter of the way through the book. I want to inject it into my bloodstream, tattoo it on my soul. My world is no longer spinning because it only revolves around this book and these characters. If this were the last book I were to read during my time on earth, or even the only book, I’d consider it a blessing.

I hope Happy Place does to Emily Henry what Midnights did to Taylor Swift. I’m talking it better be at the top of every best-seller list to ever exist. In every universe, this deserves to be everyone’s favorite book.

I would like to amend my holy grail literature recommendations to put this at the top of the list.

If I could only describe this book in one sentence, it would be this…

"The feeling of being so grateful to have something worth missing.”

Thank you to Berkley Romance and Emily Henry for providing me with this ARC. As always, all opinions are (proudly) my own and are not influenced by early access to this title.

Although there is a nice undercurrent here about figuring out what you want as an adult and taking care of one's mental health, the two main characters spent a great deal of the book hurting each other over and over because they just wouldn't communicate. After awhile, it became tiresome and at times unpleasant to read. Which is a pity, because I did enjoy some of the group dynamics and the humor in their interactions.

I ended up recieving two arcs of this and it was my favourite emily henry yet! Her rom coms are always so swoony, and full of laughs and tension. The banter she writes between the characters really brings them to life and I have never found a better dialouge/banter writer she is top tier.

I’m not even sure where to start with this book. It was amazing. Absolutely phenomenal. This was also my first time reading Emily Henry. I was told by friends that all of her books are feel good with happy endings. Let me tell you, this book ripped my heart out and danced on it till I could barely take anymore. I don’t think I’ve had a book make me cry THIS hard. It’s got a little bit of spice but it’s not too bad. Beautifully written and wonderfully told. I’m pretty sure I cried for more than half the book. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a second chance romance.

Absolutely my favorite book of hers now. It is so nostalgic, so sad, so tender. The ways that we grow apart, the ways that we don't trust our person to care and hold us. I absolutely love romance books that are marriage in crisis or relationship in crisis. It feels SO REAL. And this felt unbelievably real.

I will say that I appreciated the increased diversity that Emily had - not just a bunch of white people. But, I think that the racial and queer diversity could've been fleshed out more. At time they felt like just add ons.

With that being said, this book was truly phenomenal and is a must read.

HAPPY PLACE is my favorite book of 2023 so far— Henry sprinkled MAGIC all over this book and it might also be my new all-time fave romance 👀😭💘💖👏🏼

i’ve read all Henry’s books and can admit i’m not as obsessed with some of them (namely PWMOV) as most of booksta, but there’s no doubt this girl can write. when she announced her 4th novel would be a second chance romance and compared it to Maroon by Taylor Swift, it was over for me 😂 this book has quite literally one of the best settings ever (a Maine beach house with your besties) and will put you in the best, nostalgic mood. everything was fabulous—the friendships, the setting, the pacing, the chemistry, the side characters/plots, the angst, the themes, the build up, the ENDING 🥹 i’m under Henry’s spell!!

HAPPY PLACE is about Harriet and Wyn and their group of best friends. they’re going to the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s safe haven one final time. the issue? the friend group doesn’t know Harriet and Wyn called off their engagement six months ago. they don’t want to spoil the trip, but how will they make it through the week without anyone finding out? is it that hard to fake it for a week?

HAPPY PLACE is so much more than a second chance romance—the friendship themes were arguably as strong as the love story. i was tabbing so many quotes—Henry’s writing is TOP TIER. the forced proximity trope made me nervous bc it’s usually very cringe but this one wasn’t at all. and one more round of applause for this beach setting—sunkissed summer skin, your friends in one place with your happiest memories, time is frozen and “real life” doesn’t exist. this book is a HAPPY PLACE indeed 💘

thank you to @berkleyromance for the #gifted copy. i cannot wait for book lovers to fall in love with Harriet, Wyn and the rest of this crew like i did 🫶🏼

“Love means constantly saying you’re sorry, and then doing better.”


Don’t ask me why, but I feel so surprised every time I finish an Emily Henry book and end up loving it. I need to accept the fact that when it comes to contemporary romances, she’s the one for me.

I love her sense humour. I love her characters. I love her writing. I love her stories. I love the cozy light early 20s movies vibe I get from all of her books. Her books got a certain kind of “spark” that just so work for me. Her books -even when they aren’t usually so happy- are kind of my happy place.

Huge Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this copy. This made me so freakin happy.

Emily Henry follows up her bestsellers 'Beach Read' and 'Book Lovers' with 'Happy Place', a story of first love on the rocks. First-person narrator Harriet came from a repressed, unhappy home. In college, she finds friendship with Sabrina and Cleo, and the three of them form an unbreakable bond. They spend part of every summer at Sabrina's father's luxurious cottage in Maine, creating memories and traditions that sustain them all year long. During one of these weeks, Harriet meets her roommate's best friend, Wyn, and they start slip sliding into love. Wyn and Harriet's connection is intense, with lots of yearning and pining. They get together and the bedrock of their friend group is solidified.

But that's all backstory. Eight years later, Harriet is traveling to the cottage alone, hoping to find a way to tell her besties that she and Wyn have broken up. But when she steps onto the property, she's ambushed by a bunch of news: the cottage is being sold; Sabrina is marrying her longtime boyfriend at the end of the week; and Wyn is here to help them celebrate. Alarmed and cornered, Harriet doesn't want to ruin their last week at the cottage with news of a breakup, so she and Wyn agree to conceal their separation and act like they're still together. Given the unresolved, mysterious nature of their parting, their reunion is intense, with lots of yearning and pining, and the added spice of not knowing what it all means.

This is an enjoyable read, with lots of Emily Henry's trademark attention to living and loving in a charming small town. The yearning and pining is potent and intense, and Harriet and Wyn's relationship is deep and worth exploring. The distinct voices of each of the six friends in the book is a triumph. The rhythms and cadences and histories of their friendships feel lived-in and real, and the coming-of-age conflict of college friends growing in different directions, of not being sure whether the friendship will survive, is extremely relatable though too easily solved. The romantic conflict is of the kind that could be mostly relieved with one forthright conversation between the leads, but the strength of their connection leavens much of the impatience a reader might feel. They each find their happy place by the end of the book, and many readers will too.

Many thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for the eARC.

This book broke me down, built me back up, and then toppled me over again. The ache I felt reading about these characters and the downfall of their relationship was so raw.
These characters were so vivid. I connected to each of them and felt myself reflected back in the worst and best ways. The relationships felt so realistic, from the ways that they showed love, to the ways they all got on each others nerves.
Wyn and Harriet's relationship was so authentic, and seeing the way that they ended up falling apart was so heart breaking. Their conversations about their relationship were so real and the ways that they found to reconnect with each other were beautiful.
Safe to say, I'm obsessed with this book and these characters. I can see this being a little more divisive - if you read Emily Henry you're likely already familiar with the fact that her books lean more women's fiction, but this one takes it a step further, so much so that I think the marketing of this book is doing it and it's readers a disservice by only describing it as a romance.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Emily Henry, and publisher Berkley for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I don't know how Emily Henry does it!!!!! Queen writes 4 books in 4 years that each keep getting better than the last?? I am SO SHOOK by Happy Place, and I already can't wait to reread it again once it is published. HANDS DOWN my favorite of her books that she released for multiple reasons-- Harriet and Wyn, lake setting, and most importantly, the friend group!! This book is definitely different than her previous novels, in what I personally think is a GREAT way. Don't get me wrong, the romance in this book is definitely present and steamy (I want an outdoor shower now), but I would call this more women's/general fiction rather than ~romance~. There is so much emphasis on the characters in this story and on their friendships/relationships to each other versus only centered on the relationship, which I adored. It gave the book nuance and helped me as a reader who generally doesn't like romance novels to dive in further; I felt invested and would have loved to see EVEN MORE of Sabrina and Cleo. Because it is so character-centric though, I am interested in hearing other reviews of it because I think some readers are going to be surprised by this turn. However, Henry's gorgeous writing style is present throughout, and I hope it gets just as much love as her other books because I would LOVE to see her move more in this direction. My only complaint is that I felt like the word "happy" was repeated way too much in the book lol, and I personally wish that Henry would have taken a bit more of a risk with the ending, but I was still satisfied with the conclusion and already anxiously awaiting what she has in store next. Henry is truly one of the best writers of the moment in her genre who can write a contemporary romance that delves deeper than just the smut and relationship into nuanced characters and storylines that readers can genuinely relate to and root for. I don't know how she will top this for me, but I can't wait to see!!

Are Emily Henry books my happy place?? This was lovely! I don’t usually enjoy Second Chance romances, but Emily Henry will get me every time. I loved the back-and-forth with the time periods as well. That’s another thing that I don’t normally like but I like it when she does it. The non-chronological order allowed me to really fall in love with their relationship, and then root for them in the present. I do think that this book takes a minute to get into but then the payoff is very worth it. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

I wanted more from this book. I truly do love Emily Henry but I just don’t think I’m a fan of second-chance romance. Also, there was just miscommunication left and right. I did love the characters but their friendships did feel very surface level to me. I do plan on re-reading to see if my feelings on this book change at all.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝘼 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚 𝙪𝙥 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙝𝙨 𝙖𝙜𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙫𝙖𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡.

📍 Read if you like:
• Second Chances
• Found Family
• Friend Groups
• Dual Timelines
• Open Door Romances
• Summer/Beach Reads

When I think of a romance author I’ll always read, I always think of Emily Henry. There’s just something about her romances that make the perfect beach reads. I haven’t found one from her that was as touching as PWMOV, but I just love reading her books.

I definitely want to reread this sometime during the summer to see if my thoughts change. I still have it four stars and enjoyed it, but I think it was a bit too long and just wasn’t the right time for this - still really enjoyed it.

Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago, and neither their friends nor family knows they’re not together anymore. During their vacation in Maine with their friends, they have to pretend to still be engaged.

I really enjoyed the small-town feel that Maine gave. The dual timeline was also so interesting and had me intrigued with what happened between the two months ago.

I will say I loved these characters, not only the MCs but also the side characters. There was such a strong friendship between these people and I just loved it so much ~ Harriet, Wyn, Chloe, Kim, Sabrina, and Parth ~ this is by far one of my favorite friend groups.

Between the group are multiple romances, however, this book focuses on that of Wyn and Harriet. As I said, I was so interested in both of them. As cliche as it might be… I think I found my happy place with this story.

I’m so hyped for this book to release, I already know I’m going to be seeing it everywhere and readers are going to absolutely love it. Therefore, I hate to say this and make you wait… but you should definitely look forward to this one when it releases!

Unpopular opinion but I wasn’t a fan.

I felt myself skimming some parts just to get through and you’re telling me I read 400 pages just to find out the reason they broke up is because they failed to communicate? Like, I understand couples change through a relationship but to completely dismiss your partner and dump them the way Wyn did to Harriet, ugh. Yes, losing a family member is hard but Wyn just flat out fails to communicate ANY of his feelings to his fiancé, and all she’s trying to do is not lose him while he grieves. Literally, all she did was try to make his life easier and to make him happy but to him it seemed like she no longer cared about him?

I have no words.

*I received an ARC of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review with my honest opinion.*

I’ve always enjoyed Emily Henry’s books and Happy Place is no exception. As always, the dialogue is incredible, and I literally laughed out loud numerous times over some of the banter between the characters. The main hero and heroine, Wyn and Harriet, are likeable characters. They both have personality flaws they have to face and overcome for the sake of their relationship, and I believe Emily Henry unraveled that layer by layer in a wonderful way that makes you love Wyn and Harriet - flaws and all. The only real problem I had with this book was the drug use amongst the characters. Now, I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but smoking marijuana and tripping on gummies made me think of them more as teenagers than adults, so it was hard to take them and their “life problems” seriously. The drug use feels strange and out of place in an Emily Henry book, and I don’t understand why it was included, but…anyway…I would still recommend it. (The book, I mean. Not the drugs. LOL). I just hope it doesn’t become a regular thing in her future books. (Fingers crossed!)

What a book that will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions. A book that shines a light on how time changes and so do people. How missed communications can alter relationships. How it's incumbent on people to adapt to these changes or risk losing their loved ones

What an all around heart wrenching and profound book by Emily Henry

Thank you to Emily, the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

Emily Henry has done it again. Though readers of her previous works will once again be charmed by her very real characters with very real joys and heartaches, I think she will also gain new fans who may not typically be drawn to contemporary romance.

Another lovely book by Emily Henry. I appreciate NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of Happy Place. Six friends get together for one last week at their Happy Place, an estate in Maine. They've been coming here since college, As the week passes, the friends realize their lives change, but stay the same - everyone plays their part. We learn about Harriet and Wyn, who were engaged, but have broken up without telling their friends. The story is set from their point of view and alternates between now and the past.

Fans of Emily Henry won't be disappointed by her latest novel. Happy Place delivers stories about friendship, family and romance. Although there is nothing especially new or unique about the plot; the novel is fun, entertaining and sometimes sweet. Would someone make the decision that Sadie did at this point in her career? Maybe. Is it realistic? I'm not sure. But this is cozy and fun fiction - something we can all use! :)