Too much miscommunication, too much crying. Who breaks up after 8 years and an engagement without talking about why you're calling it quits? Didn't connect with any characters and wasn't sad it was over. It's hit or miss with Emily Henry novels and this definitely wasn't a hit.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Emily Henry everyone, has done it yet again.

Harriet and Wyn were the perfect couple, or still are according to their friend group, since they still think they are together. Harriet and Wyn have been separated for five months now. But it's the annual trip to the cottage and they will do anything to keep the week as normal as possible since it's the last week there given the cottage is being sold. This is how they have wound up sharing a room like always and pretending they are still together all while fighting the feelings that they both still want each other.

I loved this. For the longest time I swore of romance books and felt like they just were not for me, but this year, it's been a whirlwind of love on the pages, and I have soaked every word up. Harriet was one of the most relatable characters that I have read in a long time. Wyn made me want to rip my hair out at points.

All in all, Emily Henry never fails to put out a great romance with plenty of plot and even more enjoyable characters.

Wouldn’t say this was my favorite Emily Henry book, but it was still amazing nonetheless!

Emily Henry has this way of writing incredibly real and raw characters that you can easily relate to and feel so many emotions for. I found so many pieces of myself within Harriet & Wyn, and I could not help but love them — flaws and all.

It was painful being able to relate to Harriet so much. Her thoughts and perspectives on life (as well as so many other things) really made me feel seen, and I adored her character. On the other hand, I struggled a bit with Wyn in the beginning, but, as the book went on, I could see where he was coming from. I loved seeing these two finally get their happy ending.

Something that I really loved about this book was the sheer atmosphere of it. It was set in a small, scenic town with all the summer vibes I could have ever wanted, alongside an undertone of coziness. The setting was perfect for the story. Plus, there was an added liveliness with all the fun side characters and wonderful friendships. Everything just complemented the book and its intended message so well.

All in all, Emily Henry never fails to make me feel all the emotions with her books, even with a assumingly light, summer romcom like this one. The second chance angst of Harriet & Wyn’s story and the general atmosphere that was created truly drew me in, and I could not put it down. I already can’t wait to see what Emily Henry writes next.

Thank you so much to Berkley & NetGalley for an ARC of this book!

Emily Henry’s Latest Contemporary Romance Will Transport You to Your Happy Place

We’re far enough into this ongoing pandemic that it’s fascinating to see potential micro-trends popping up in fiction (aside from the clear delineation between those authors that did and did not set their novels in our covid timeline). One that stands out this year is group getaways in contemporary romances: Laura Kay’s Wild Things sees a group of friends buying a house in the English countryside—the lockdown dream—while Emily Henry’s latest reunites college buddies at the eponymous Happy Place in coastal Maine. But the requisite twist is that one of the couples, surgical resident Harriet Kilpatrick and carpenter Wyn Connor, have secretly broken off their engagement months ago without clueing in the most important people in their lives. And with their beloved cottage getting sold off, making this the final summer, they don’t want to burden the others with their breakup. So they’ll have to fake-date (fake-engage?) for a week with no one the wiser… what one might consider the lockdown nightmare.

It’s such a delicious premise for the fourth book from Henry, recently profiled in Vulture as having cracked the modern romance novel formula with her willingness to explore the darker anxieties that weigh down our need for love and connection. What’s especially interesting here is watching Henry fine-tune her own particular recipe for romance, tweaking similar elements from past books and recombining them into innovative new narratives. As I noted in last year’s review of Book Lovers, all of her novels are set over the summer, yet each utilizes the sunshine and breaks and vacations differently. Happy Place has the most in common with People We Meet on Vacation: a story that spans a decade, a summer getaway as the antidote to real-world stresses and disappointments, a way to check in on the same people and see if they still mean the same things to each other as more and more responsibilities and distractions crowd into the relationships they established when they were younger and more carefree.

Because for all the time that Happy Place spends in the present, it spends an equal amount of time apart from it—in the past and in other happy places, starting with when Harry met her roommates-turned-soulmates Sabrina and Cleo in freshman year of college. As various members of the original trio depart for semesters abroad or internships, they invite in a revolving door of roommates who happen to become Sabrina and Harry’s eventual partners: suave Parth, and his flirty bud Wyn. Rounding out the group is Cleo’s girlfriend Kimmy, the kind of bubbly person who fits into the dynamic so well that it’s hard to believe she was never there from the start. And as graduation—and grad school, and med school, and dropping out of school—steers each of the six into new orbits, what keeps bringing them back together is their summers at Sabrina’s family’s mansion-sized cottage in (fictional but affectionately detailed) Knott’s Harbor, Maine.

The book also wisely visits the unhappy places, the houses that never became homes, and the dark spirals into which we descend so deep that we can’t fathom finding our way back up. Supposed relationship milestones, like meeting the parents, instead reveal how happiness can be bound up in self-sacrifice, with love and partnership and commitment becoming a zero-sum game. Henry provides a multifaceted examination of this dilemma, through the lenses of lovers and spouses and parents and best friends.

But even this final summer, the portions demarcated as Real Life, is split into parallel experiences: Harry and Wyn trying to pull one over on their closest friends, and in the process stoking their own sexual tension; contrasted with Harry’s relatable confusion at not understanding why Wyn broke her heart months ago and what he wants from her now.

Fake dating is one of the more high-concept romance premises to pull off, but Henry grounds it in Harry and Wyn’s history, as well as their trust that their friends will be so busy clinging to nostalgia in their final week at the cottage that they’ll mentally spackle over any perceived tension with rose-colored memories of when the two first got together. Because those flashbacks are so authentic to the early-20s experience of first serious relationships and the trickiness of simultaneously twining your life around someone else’s while still learning enough about yourself and what you want. Experiencing their week of sham normalcy has even greater depth when contrasted alongside the ten years that forged the relationship that they’re now playacting. And that makes it even more fun when Harry is grinding on Wyn’s lap at the local dive bar, or Wyn is hamming up their blissful affianced status in the cottage pool.

But this book isn’t just about the main couple, it’s about the people whose feelings they’re trying to protect after they’ve already failed at protecting one another from their vastly diverging life paths.

Often in romances, even the strongest friend group can’t help but feel like fodder for future pairings—like even if the foils and confidantes are fully fleshed-out, it’s often (very smart!) groundwork being laid for the next installment. Not so here, where both Sabrina and Parth, and Cleo and Kimmy, possess their own engaging dynamics with micro and macro tensions that do and don’t include Harry and Wyn. It brings to mind the commiserating faculty foursome in Christina Lauren’s My Favorite Half-Night Stand, whose rhythms and rituals are so lived-in that reading almost feels like eavesdropping… but you can’t stop yourself from listening in.

The cottage is almost its own character, as well, Henry so lovingly details it through Harry’s key memories. You can so clearly envision the wine cellar in which occurs a pivotal moment in their early relationship (and, one could argue, an even more crucial development in the present), or the room with the two twin beds upon which they first fall in love.

As in Book Lovers, Henry has again established a compellingly tense will-they-won’t-they that makes, honestly, a more convincing argument for Harry and Wyn not to stay together. Though their friends are clearly family, their blood families also undeniably influence their relationship in all of its phases; Henry delves unflinchingly into how even supposedly innocuous neglect from parents can shape an impressionable child’s sense of safety when it comes to future relationships. The ways in which Harry’s flawed self-preservation ripples into the relationships that actually matter to her will keep you following her from place to place hoping she’ll find her way through.

Only Emily Henry can write a book where the message is “the happy place is the friends we made along the way” and make it not hopelessly cheesy. It’s in fact a heavy read, but the kind where you’ll look back with a teary-eyed smile.

This was such a great story! Emily Henry has a way of creating stories filled with likable characters and believable plots. I know that her novels are often considered "beach reads" but they are more than just a quick read.

Harriet is lying through her teeth, pretending that she and her perfect fiance Wyn have not broken up. Their friends have invited them all for one last vacation at their "happy place" so that they can relive their youth and celebrate the past. This really made me want to eat seafood and drink a ton of wine.....wishing for a college experience I just did not have. Great story. Henry is an entertaining writer and her characters are quirky.

The story of former lovers who are now barely friends who must pretend to still be in love and engaged to be married! They are stuck with their best friends in a vacation home by the sea in Maine, and must share a room with a king sized bed, not twin beds.
The suspense in the novel hangs on this trope - former lovers pretending to still be in love.
Most of the book details the friends enjoying shopping, cooking, eating and drinking on their beach vacation, being together as an annual ritual soon to be broken when the vacation home is sold. The pretence of Harriet and Wyn leads to a predictable ending, but the reader does spend their reading time on vacation with the group and wishing for a happy ending.

A light beach read, that has one main romantic suspense theme. I wished for a more diverse plot with more angles to the story.

It was a light read with a happy ending. I enjoy all of Emily Henry's books. They are light but not with guts and good characters.

This is now my favorite Emily Henry book! I cried and laughed many times and could not put it down! Read it from start to finish. The chemistry and development of the characters were top notch and I wish I had more time with the main characters. honestly, I wish I had some bonus content from the side characters' viewpoints, they all seemed so interesting!

QUICK TAKE: the equivalent of eating an entire birthday cake in one sitting. it's escapist, but these are not real world problems and I couldnt have related less to any of these characters. even their fights were cute. Emily Henry gonna Emily Henry. I understand why she has such a passionate and enthusiastic fanbase, but this one was not for me.

“In every universe, it’s you for me.
Even if it’s not me for you.”

Emily Henry can do no wrong. No romance novel will ever make me feel the way hers do, and I think that's because her characters (or at least their feelings) are always so relatable. I don't want to spoil anything, but you can literally feel the longing and the tension between Harriet and Wyn, which is what makes the book so hard to put down. Also, this book is *so* Taylor Swift Midnights coded.

Overall, 10/10 recommend. Just like every other Emily Henry book I've ever read.

*Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group, Emily Henry, and NetGalley for the ARC, in exchange for my honest review.*

This copy was kindly given to me by Netgalley and the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

Emily Henry does it again! Ughhhhh, I think she has destroyed me. I could not put this book down.

I won't lie, I have always wanted to take a pottery class. After this book I was even more determined to... I just took a six week course shortly after I finished this book:) I love the setting, both Maine and Montana. The trials of friendships and love, the quest for what is 'happy' and the fear that we feel when change makes things feel as if it is all slipping away.

"The world needs more happy potters, not unhappy doctors" I loved that Henry did not shy away from hard hitting subjects. While I have never been in love like these two characters (we can only hope) and it can sometimes make a sorry a little unrealistic feeling when feelings are that deep *(again, maybe just because I haven't felt that way), the way she tackle the real life problems, it this book depression and communication issues, was spectacular.

This is my favorite work from Emily by far. It's way more women's fiction than her previous romance titles (which I love). Perfect! Emily Henry can do no wrong <3

While I still enjoy Emily Henry and look forward to her future books, this one was not for me. I still enjoyed the setting and supporting character relationships, but I was not a fan of this particular romance and found the book dragging out and becoming a little boring. Overall, I think Henry is still a very strong writer and look forward to her future works as I have greatly enjoyed her previous titles.

This definitely wasn’t my favorite book by Emily Henry. I enjoyed it but I find the cover and title to be very miss leading the story Is fiction not romance.

I really liked the back and forth timeline showing the beginning of their relationship. I do with it was duel POV. I did love the found family.

Cute, but predictable. I enjoyed the settting more than the characters or story. A light summer read, but mediocre.

Not my favorite of Emily Henry's books, but I will recommend to fans of fake-dating romance, the Second Chance trope, and "beach read" novels like those by Elin Hilderbrand, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and "The Unhoneymooners" by Christina Lauren.

Harriet and Wyn broke up five months ago, but haven't told anyone yet. Now finding themselves on their yearly vacation with the friend group, the two decide to fake-continue-dating (and being engaged) to help the week go smoothly.

The reason for their sudden, unresolved breakup isn't revealed until the end of the story, and quite frankly I found this frustrating. Miscommunication tropes are not my fave, and their lack of communication was driving me crazy.

That said, I always enjoy Henry's writing style and still got sucked into the story while on vacation. I have high hopes for the next novel!

Wyn and Harriet were together for eight years and broke up five years ago after a rough few months. Neither have told anyone - Wyn has been wrapped up in caring for his mother, and Harriet is busy with her residency. Both don't get to see their core friend group from college often, but return to their "Happy Place" in Maine for an annual vacation. Harriet expects this year she'll go and take every other year off with Wyn, but when she arrives, Wyn is there. The two pretend to still be together to please their friends as it turns out it's their last summer at the house, which is being sold, and two of their friends are having a surprise wedding.

It's easy for the reader to sympathize with Harriet and Wyn, but Henry drags out the reason behind the break up until towards the end of the book, and ultimately it's frustrating to find out two people who truly came into their adulthood together couldn't communicate to work through some major shit until it was almost too late. The ending falls flat with a romance, with Harriet's thoughts reflecting more on her personal growth than that of her relationship with Wyn.

The conflict within friendships felt off, too. The discussions felt like they were between much younger characters when it came to any sort of relationship dynamic.

The depression representation was well done and the read itself is enjoyable, slightly steamy, and emotionally charged.

Emily henry's best one yet. I loved every second of it. Funny, heartwarming, and includes the pains of growing up even in your twenties.