Perfection as always. Emily Henry just knows how to write romantic leads that manage to tear my heart into absolute shreds. Will write more closer to release date!

A warm hug when you need it.

Harriet and Wyn have been broken up for 5 months now, but in an effort to salvage the last annual Maine besties trip, they agree to fake continue-to-be-engaged. What follows is an equal-parts heartfelt and heart-wrenching story of chosen family, lost and found love, and independence.

Every single character felt so dynamic and real; it’s clear how much time Henry has spent with these characters, imagining full lives for them and giving us a long glance into each one. Everyone had such complex feelings and conflicts that propelled them through the story. I love all six of these pals deeply.

The brief timeline shifts felt very successful. It was a useful device for the slow reveal of each friend’s motivations, which kept the immersion alive. Not only that, but it allowed for great callbacks, and I love a good callback.

Henry’s banter is always top-notch, and Happy Place was no exception. The way Harriet and Wyn riff off one another, and how they still find jests in hard conversations, stole my heart. Rooting for y’all always.

Emily Henry romances haven’t always been hits for me, but there’s no questioning that this one is smashing. It’s been ages since I felt so emotionally invested in a text. so much so that I felt I had to savor it. Sometimes a book is presented to you at the perfect time in your life, and Happy Place is one of those for me. I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed this, but I’ll leave it at: Thank you, Emily Henry, for this one. It means a lot.

And thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the eARC. Forever appreciated. ♡

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of Happy Place by Emily Henry!

This book was a palette cleanser for me. I really enjoyed reading it. This book has second chances, forced proximity, and a great male main character (Wyn). I liked all of the friends, especially Kimmy. The book is told in the present and there are also flashbacks of how Harriet and Wyn got together and how their relationship disintegrated. Everyone who likes romance should pick this up!

Emily henry does it again. This book had me in my feelings more than her previous work. A second chance romance mixed with that perfect life crisis always makes for a great story, The characters in this book were everything. The friend group was everything and it was so good to see them not be these perfect people and realize they're all working through something,

The love story though! Ah! my whole heart. Hariet and Wyn's love story is that all consuming love you're so lucky to have found and at some point one person realizes they may not be enough. The angst, the hurt, the pining, the LOVE, and of course the sexual tension. I just wanted to lock them in a wine cellar together (haha, see what I did there?)

Get ready for Emily to tug at your heartstrings yet again. This is the perfect combination of forever love and women's fiction.

4.5 stars rounded up -- half-star taken off because I'm not entirely sure the structure (happy place flashbacks interspersed with real life narrative) was necessary, especially as the real life bits sometimes had memories in them.

That being said, I loved this almost as much as Book Lovers, my favorite of Emily Henry's novels. I can see readers who come mostly for the banter, swoon, and steam being a little disappointed. Wyn and Harriet aren't quite as sharp and clever as Charlie and Nora, and the steamy bits are restrained. But what I like most about Henry's romances is the layers to the story. Book Lovers, for instance, was about grief and family expectations as much as it was about the romance. This one is about the ways our childhood hurts inform our adult relationships, and about friends who have become family struggling to understand that growing in different directions doesn't have to mean growing apart.

Wyn and Harriet's main conflict is communication, which I know is a pet peeve for many romance readers, including me. (WHY DON'T YOU JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER!? I've been known to yell at a book.) But the lack of communication here is central to what each is struggling with individually. And Henry smartly mitigates the potential annoyance by only writing from Harriet's POV. We can make assumptions about Wyn's feelings and thoughts, but they're never explicitly on the page (beyond dialogue).

The ending feels maybe a little rushed -- though I think that's partially because Henry's characters felt real to me. I know that getting past some of the things they're struggling with probably would take more than one big epiphany, but for the purposes of a HEA, Henry leaves those future fights for the reader to imagine.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Emily Henry is my favorite romance author and every book gives me the feeling of pure unadulterated excitement mixed with anxiety. My reason for this mixed bag of emotion? I’m so nervous to see who lies within the pages! Is it going to feel like Beach Read? Are we visiting places like we did in PWMOV? Am I going to fall in love with the leading man like I did with Charlie? So much to consider! So much to wonder over. But Happy Place does such an incredible job at blending everything I’ve loved about Emily Henry into one. The locations, the friendships and found family, the romance, the chemistry, the happy tears and the sad ones. I was enamored with every character and every scene. This book also has a bit of switching timelines from the past to present, and usually I prefer one timeline to the other, but every time a new chapter started I was just greedy for more of the characters.

Overall, I laughed, I CRIED, I fell in love with my own friends all over again and felt snuggly in my relationship. Thank you Emily Henry for giving me more characters to cherish and new storylines to obsess over!

Emily Henry does it again--fantastic characters, a believable use of a trope that isn't my favorite, friendships, love, and humor. I loved it.

Emily Henry does it again with her latest. Harriet's happy place is on the coast of Maine with her dearest friends from college. They're gathering together for one last hurrah before the home they love is sold. The six of them have returned to it for over ten years and letting go is proving to be harder than anticipated. In the several months leading up to the trip, Harriet and her ex-fiance, Wyn, grew apart and broke up, but they couldn't bring themselves to tell their friends. They've agreed Wyn won't go on the trip, but when Harriet walks in the door, he's there waiting for her as if the last six months never happened. They agree to put on a show for their friends, but will they make it through the week? The story is told alternating between the present day and the happy places of the past. This book is at the top of my list for reads in 2022. I highly recommend it.

What I love about Emily Henry’s stories is that they reflect real people and real lives. Her characters feel less fictional and more like someone I could know or even sometimes, they feel like myself.

Happy Places takes two people, Harriet and Wyn, and tells a story of growth and loss and coming back together again. It’s a mature story and Emily’s writing reflects that maturity and growth.

Flashing back between past and present, readers get to learn the story of how Harriet and Wyn came to be, how they fell apart, and how they pieced themselves back together again. It’s beautiful and real and raw.

This book also tackles adult friendships and yhe difficulty it takes to maintain them. Harriet and Wyn’s friend group feels like they could be my friends, or even yours, and you can’t help but feeling like you’ve gone through exactly what they’re going through.

When adding the relatability with the banter that Emily does best, this has easily become my favorite book of hers. I can’t recommend this book enough.

I've previously loved everything else that Emily Henry has written, so I figured I could get a sneak peek into what this one would look like. The start was a little bit slow for me but I feel like if I read this at a more appropriate time, I could get more into it. I'm excited to finish this when the physical copy is published.

Emily Henry writes some of the very best modern romance out there! Her character development is just....chef's kiss! Her story lines are always top notch too, not too sappy, just perfection! Thank you Emily Henry!

Emily Henry does it again. I couldn’t put this one down. As someone who prefers more angsty romance to romcom, Happy Place had just the right amount of each. I literally laughed out loud, was hanging onto every dramatic moment, and then crying. I don’t know friends this one GOT TO ME in an unexpected way.

Random, non-spoilery thoughts:

- finally a book for the type 9s. I identified with Harriet so much even when I didn’t want to 😅
- friend group! the group was so fun but also very realistic representation of how friendships change as you get older.
- miscommunication “trope” galore but there’s a reason for it: people suck at communicating! we assume things, we try to make things easier on people we love by not saying anything, etc. and all the characters navigating romantic and platonic relationships are grappling with it.
- Setting: MAINE. Maine is also one of my happy places and I love seeing books set there.

Want and Harriet are so fun together and I love their friends and the friendship they have with each other and others and they have such a fun meet cute. It was so much fun to read and to get the their back story then get the real life story happening now I love the story

Emily Henry has a way of writing stories that make you feel. They’re electric with banter and full of so much emotion. Harriet and Wyn’s romance feels real—it’s not perfect in the slightest and that’s what makes it even better. Some romance books suck you in for the fantasy of it all, but Emily Henry’s books make you believe in love that’s messy and imperfect but all the better for it.

I’m going to be thinking about this book for a very, very long time.

4.5 stars!!

This book was messy, but in a good way? I hope that makes sense, but this is the first Emily Henry book that has made me cry while reading. I finished the book 2 minutes ago and I already want to reread it again. If I could I would give this book to so many people.

Full review to come closer to release date.

Happy Place is another wonderful book gifted to the world by Emily Henry. Although it is a fun and easy romantic read packed with intense sexual tension, it also has compelling and complex characters with real depth. I like romantic reads that have strong character development and that dive into real life issues.

Thank you Emily Henry for another great book, and thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

#HappyPlace #NetGalley

This is by far my favourite Emily Henry book, and one of the best romances I’ve ever read. I’m a sucker for second chance romances, and Henry executed it PERFECTLY. The past and present timelines make it so you fall hard for Harriett and Wyn, and their precious and magical friend group. There’s so much heartache here, but it’s also about growing up, growing apart, navigating changing best friendships, being true to yourself and what makes you happy, and so much forgiveness and laughter. I adored every second of this novel.

Thanks to Berkeley and NetGalley for letting me read an advanced copy of this book!

I usually do not love second chance romances and actively actually avoid them. However, Emily Henry does write beautiful romance books that always dance the perfect balance between fun and cute, and deep and personal. This novel was no different. Henry did a wonderful job with this book and I think if I actively liked second chance romances it would be a five stars for me, but because they just tend not to be my favourite, I have to put it at four stars. That being said, I did absolutely adore my time with this book. Each character felt real, fleshed out, and with their own unique backstories which made me connect to the story even more. I loved how she slowly developed characters instead of expecting us to love them off the bat, she introduced us to them, let us get to know them, and before long I was in love. Harriet and Wyn? Absolutely adorable and such wonderfully built characters.

I will say, a criticism I have for a lot of romance books recently, is the need to market them with popular social media tropes. I think this has always been slightly a thing, but I feel more and more novels are built around popular tropes from social media instead of plots. I think Emily Henry did a great job of this one, as it felt entirely unique, I am just worried about novels getting repetitive (again, Emily Henry did avoid this in this novel, but this was a worry going into it).

Harriet and Wyn have just broken off their engagement. But neither have told their tight-knit friend group. When they find themselves on their traditional friend vacation, the two pretend to still be together in hopes of keeping the peace for everyone else. But there is still lingering feelings and unresolved issues that the couple and their friends need to work out.

Henry takes a romance trope that could easily turn to zaniness and infuses it with feeling while grounding it in reality. You feel the love of the friends. The love, lust, want, need between Harriet and Wyn is palpable. And the banter is top notch as always. This is what I want in a romance.

Other than quality romance, Henry also confronts many a 30-somethings’ issues, concerns, and challenges. At the heart of this one is how do friendships survive as you grow up? How do you change with other people? Henry speaks to the angst and worry of that period in life as you change from a single 20-something adult into a 30-something adult settling into a relationship, starting a career, and beginning your life. Henry is so popular because her books are so real and touch that nerve that is so universal.

*reviewed from a DRC from netgalley*

Happy Place takes you through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Harriet is a loveable narrator who is both funny and wise. She and Wyn muck through a week long vacation planned by their friends posing as a happy couple. A tale of romance and friendships that will make you laugh and cry.