Please can someone tell me how I get to be a character in an Emily Henry book? I need to be in this book and have Sabrina, Parth, Cleo, Kimmy, Wyn and Harriet as my best friends. I should be lucky friend number 7. I want to eat lobster rolls with them and listen to Parth’s playlists. I want to play Grocery Gladiators. I want Knott’s Harbor to be a real place so I can visit and smell the brine of the sea and go to the Lobster Festival. I have friend envy. I want my own personalised holiday itinerary.

This book had me laughing and crying and more wound up than a thing that’s been wound up too many times, you know like when you bend over the seat of a swing and turn around lots of times and then lift your feet up and it spins you around really fast? That’s how wound up I was. I almost broke the rule of looking at the final chapter because I was so discombobulated. The poor husband had to put up with me full on ranting about what I thought was going to happen and how I was so scared because, my new best friends were in an unhappy place, when I just needed everything to be right in their world. I don’t care that they aren’t real people, they are real to me.

I love Wyn and Harriet. I love that he always calls her by her full name. Never Harry or Har or H, always Harriet. I love how he plays with her curls. How he can’t stop touching her. I just love him. I was so invested in their relationship that I was thinking I should write a petition that’s said, if the ending did not have me singing happy songs and skipping merrily as I went about my day, that I could force Emily Henry to change it.

I should have had faith. Happy Place left me in a happy place, skipping and smiling and wishing that I could be a potter. A happy place isn’t just about a location, it’s about finding the people who make the happiness and the contentment of everything else around that. It’s about doing the things that make your heart happy and not compromising that because you feel obliged to follow someone else’s dream.

On that note, I have a dilemma; can I put this book on my top reads of the year when technically it isn’t going to be published until next year? Whatever it is most definitely, absolutely, undeniably one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Emily Henry NEVER fails. I always love her work, but she really did outdo herself with The Happy Place. This book was written for Taylor Swift fans and more specifically the mirrorball girlies. For the people that feel like they have to be different versions of yourself in order to be around different people.

Character description of our beautiful girl Harriet, written by Taylor Swift (super official)
I'll show you every version of yourself tonight
I'll get you out on the floor
Shimmering beautiful
And when I break it's in a million pieces

I just cant stop obessing over this book, it was everything and then some. The actual writing is Emilys BEST work. It feels like someone is opening up their mind and allowing you to see every single flaw and imperfection of them, but all you see is their beauty :`)

Wyn and Harriet are the ultimate definition of the perfect trope. College-romance, fake-dating, forced proximity, second chance romance. THEY HAVE IT ALL AND DO IT SO FREAKING WELL!!!

I know everyone is super excited about this book, and your expectations are probably sky rocketing. Grab your tissues and a friendgroup and head up to Maine for the perfect glittering and shimmering novel.

I want to start by thanking Emily Henry, the publisher, and everyone else who was involved for providing me with this ARC.
It’s honestly been one of the greatest honors to read the book so early on.

The day Emily Henry disappoints me, all the oceans with freeze over and the world will be knocked off its course around the sun.

This book has it all, the awe, the pain. Every emotion under the sun. I see so many traits of Harriet’s in me that it was sometimes very hard to read the book without delving into inevitable self-reflection. It’s also really helped me see myself and my actions differently.

I was so scared they really weren’t going to end up together that it made me feel physically ill at times. My stomach was in knots.

I love how their love. The love all of them have for each other, the entire family, felt so palpable and real to the reader. Made me ache for that kind of love and contentment.

I am so utterly in awe of this book and its authors. I will be a blubbering, sobbing mess for years.

Please, for the love of the universe, read this book. (It’d be kind of unfair if you didn’t get to feel like I am right now, huh?)

5 stars.

"Before I even see him, my heart starts singing its favorite song. You, you, you."

Emily Henry does it again! And firstly – Yes, this lives up to expectations. I've seen people on Goodreads promising to give up their firstborn child for this book, and it does not disappoint.

This book is original, wickedly funny and excruciatingly sad. It’s a book about second-chance love and friendship. It's also a book about not getting everything you want; about sacrifices, and the pain that comes with properly loving someone. It is unfailingly real, and hopelessly romantic at the same time.

Henry writes so incredibly well. There’s a lot of imagery in her writing – it’s so engaging. The feels float across the page and you can’t help but be fully invested from the outset. Her metaphors and similes capture perfectly what she wants to convey and it's just a joy to read her work.

To me an Emily Henry book is not a normal reading experience. The writing is so full of emotion that it feels like it adds an extra dimension to the reader’s journey.

It’s more like feeling a story than reading one.

I am so thankful to Penguin and Emily Henry for the opportunity to read this one so early.

Wow. Just wow.
I loved EH’s first 2 books but was less sold on the third. Happy Place is a true return to form for her in my opinion!
Harriet, Wyn and their friends are gorgeously written, beautifully real characters. I loved the Maine setting, and the flashbacks to earlier in the relationship which took place mostly in New York and Montana. I personally would read a whole book about their days at university, if Emily ever feels like writing a prequel!
A wonderful story, I can’t wait for her next work!

I am simply convinced that Emily Henry is incapable of writing a single bad book. Happy place is definitely one of the best romance books I've ever read and it will always have a special place in my heart. I loved how it wasn't all about romantic love but also about friendship and how hard it can be to maintain your friendships when u grow up and all go your separate ways. Wyn and Harriet are truly the loves of my life. This book made me cry and smile so much and the ending was just amazing. I adored every single page of it and can't wait for it to come out so everyone can read it and love it too.

As an Emily Henry "completist" (someone who has read and adored all of her books so far) I was over the moon to be sent an advance copy of her upcoming release, Happy Place.

This book came with the added pressure of living up to expectations, but it was full of everything Emily Henry fans old and new will adore. What I particularly enjoy about her books is that she can be relied upon to take some of the most familiar romance tropes and execute them unfailingly well and with a twist. This time, the premise essentially turns upon a "fake dating" scenario, but what's interesting is that the "couple" were previously engaged and are now pretending to still be together to avoid upsetting their friends (although it sounds implausible, the reader is eventually persuaded that this might be necessary!). The structure of Happy Place, flitting between "real life" and flashbacks to piece together what has led the characters to this unlikely scenario is clever and helps to build the plot. In this sense, this book reminded me of You and Me on Vacation. This author is skilled at building tension and creating a sense of longing that comes with all the best crushes.

The other ingredients are all there too: snappy dialogue, a few pop culture references, small-town quirks, a wonderful sense of place and a fully developed cast of characters that you learn to root for. This means Henry's novels are not simply one-dimensional romances: they come with plenty of serious introspection and even darkness. For example, I certainly appreciated that depression was addressed in this novel. That said, this is still ultimately a big dose of feel-good reading, which was just the ticket for me in the darkening autumn days.

Although this may not be my favourite of Henry's books (that title probably continues to be held by Book Lovers) it is still easy to give it five stars for another fantastic read. Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for a free advance copy of Happy Place in exchange for an honest review.

I genuinely didn't think I could love an Emily Henry book more than Book Lovers, but surprise surprise I did. This was delicious. Harriet and Wyn are dreamy, the most gorgeous characters and even the friend group as secondary characters were better than some books main characters. It's cute, and romantic and funny and I just loooooved every second of it. SO SO good.

I loved this book SO much, being able to see both how the relationship developed through flashbacks as well as how obviously in love the characters still are was amazing writing. This book made me laugh and cry, and I can't wait to reread when it's released!

This book deals with mental health and where you find your happy place. With a lover, your friends, yourself? Thought provoking and moving. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book.

It is currently 01:29am and I have quite literally JUST finished this book and I couldn’t wait a second longer to write about how much I LOVED IT. As someone who doesn’t usually read many second chance romances, I wasn’t sure of what to expect, or how much I’d enjoy the trope, but realistically if it was written by Emily Henry I was guaranteed to fall in love with it. As a couple, Harriet and Wyn captured my heart from the very first flashback, and they definitely still have a pretty firm grasp on it while I sit writing this, fresh out of tears.

I didn’t expect to relate to this book so much, as a twenty-something, freshly graduated and moved to a new city to pursue the career I want, the feeling that you’re slowly slipping away from the people you know are your life-long friends, if not already family, is something that eats away at you, just as it does for Sabrina, Cleo and Harriet throughout the book. No matter what, the love will always be there, and the love of family and friends was portrayed so beautifully in this book I think my heart almost burst on multiple occasions.

All in all, I am absolutely in love with this book, the characters, the writing, all of it, and to finish, this is the start of my campaign for Wyn to be voted book boyfriend of the year 2023.

This was so incredible, Emily Henry did it again. I absolutely adored both main characters: Harriet had so much depth and emotion I thought she was so amazing and I loved Wyn and his affectionate side - something that I never get enough of in romance. I felt that this book does flashbacks better than any other romance i’ve ever read - they were the perfect length and pace. I sobbed, so so much I have no words to describe it. I couldn’t put it down and I wish it was longer.

Thank you so so much to Penguin for sending me this, I couldn’t be more grateful!

Another absolute winner from Emily Henry. Second chance romance + enemies to lovers + only one bed? Sign me up.

I loved every minute.

To say I was overjoyed to read Happy Place early is an understatement! I read a lot of romance and have many favourites in the genre, but no one does it quite like Emily Henry.

Happy Place is a second chance romance following the story of Harriet, a medical student with a penchant for indecision, and Wyn, a man too sweet for his own good. Together, they were electric. The perfect couple… until they weren’t.

Forced to pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends during one last group trip / impromptu wedding, they find themselves having to face more than just the shared bedroom.

If there’s one thing that I love in a romance book, it’s pining. I’m talking hurt/ comfort, yearning so deep it hurts, and feelings that the MC think are unrequited. And Happy Place checked all those boxes a hundred times over. I’m not a crier— not at books and not in life, but I cried no less than seven times reading this book, the yearning was immaculate. Emily Henry has an incredible ability to make characters so real you feel like you’re living in their head, and by the end of the story I was so sick with wanting the couple to be together I felt like I was right alongside them. I love all her books, but Happy Place just might take the cake as my favourite.

A million thanks to Penguin UK for the early copy, I will be forever grateful!

Emily Henry has done it again! I don’t know what type of drug she puts in her books but it’s a really good one.

I am a hardcore Emily Henry stan and I have been since Beach Read released. She is one of those rare authors who gets better with each book she releases. Happy Place may be my favourite of her books so far. Emily Henry manages to weave together the most incredible love story full of second chances, friendships and adventure. Wyn and Harriet were beautifully developed. You got to slowly see their relationship fail and then see them put the pieces back together again. The whole friendship group is also well developed and I loved exploring all of them. A romance book that you won't want to put down.

I adored this book. Compared to other books by the same author this book’s topics felt a little heavier however, there was plenty of little laughs throughout. I loved the found family aspect, I loved all the characters. Easy read I loved it!

MS EMILY HENRY YOU ARE A GOD!!!! nobody does it like you ma'am.

okay, so lets start with the fact that I got this book at all, Georgia Taylor you are on my good karma list from now until forever! My sister can attest to the fact that your e-mail left me floored and if I failed my exams it's because you put me in a fugue state. But the book pulled me out!

Okay, so let's start with the fact that Happy Place is very different to other Emily Henry books. Not in a bad way, it's intriguing, but it's definitely a switch in my opinion. Because in this book our main character and her man have been together in the past! In fact they were together for like eight actual years. That is a long time! But do not fret, the banter in this book is just as good as you expect from Ms Henry, so good it had me in tears at times. But there's also this suspense, which I found to be thrilling. Because you don't know why these two broke up in the first place. In all the flashbacks Wyn and Harriet are obscenely happy, so you wonder, what broke these two up? It's an interesting shift from Emily Henry's other books.

As for the characters, I loved loved loved Wyn. Wyn is me, except a man and with much more charisma. And richer friends. Which can be related to the charisma, so that's just my bad. Harriet is very much not me, if anything I think I'm rather like her sister Eloise. That in itself was a revelation for my relationship with my little sister, so thanks for that Ms Henry. Harriet is studious, intelligent, insecure but also very very funny. She said some of the funniest things in these books. She's also not in any bookish business (nor is Wyn) which is a diversion from Emily Henry's usual characterisations of her characters, but I liked it! Everything from the setting, to the characters to the plot felt like a new Emily Henry, dare I say, an improved Emily Henry. I don't know how much this woman must be in tune with her own emotions, because she hurts me deeply with every book.

This book was a breath of fresh air, to me. After reading 'fine' books these past few weeks, as well as being busy with uni, this felt both like coming home from and going on an adventure. It was sitting by the fire with a blanket and tea, but also feeling the wind rush past you as you reach the summit of a hike. I loved it.

I said it once, and I'll say it a thousand times, Emily Henry the woman you are (!!!!!!!). Much love to you and yours (and Georgia!! Kisses to you Georgia)

Emily Henry has done it yet again! Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review; thank you to those at Emily Henry and Penguin's publishers for giving me early access to this arc. I have absolutely loved every single one of Henry's previous novels, and she somehow keeps managing to improve her novels each time. I absolutely fell in love with Book Lovers when I received an arc of it, and thought she wouldn't have been able to top it, and yet I stand corrected. As soon as I saw I had received a copy of the arc, I put everything aside and devoured the novel as soon as I could; safe to say I was not disappointed! This book has everything you would want in an Emily Henry book, from the friendships the main characters have, to of course the main romance plot. Everything about this novel was perfection, and is the kind of book anyone would enjoy, even if romances are not something you would typically go for, as there are so many other aspects to love as well as the main romance plot, with Henry always manages to think through and add so effortlessly, making you fall completely in love with the characters, even when flawed, and even more so the story. This, along with all of her other novels, has immediately made its way to one of my favourite reads of all time, not something easily accomplished, and yet here she is with multiple of my favourites! I could not recommend this book enough, and would highly encourage anyone to read it, especially if you have loved any of Emily Henry's books previously. With everything I have said in this review, I imagine it is not a surprise that Henry has earned another 5/5 star review from me. I cannot wait to see what else Emily Henry has to offer in the future.

I couldn’t believe it when I got this in my email, I am so grateful to have read this before the release! Words can’t even describe how much I loved this book. If there was a six star rating, this would get it without a doubt. As always, the setting was incredibly described. Reading this book transported me to the cottage and Knott’s Harbour and I wish I could go and visit!

As for the characters, I saw my self so much in Harriet. I absolutely adore her. I would love to be a part of their friendship group, they seem like so much fun! Also, where can I buy a Wyn? I want one please!! He’s possibly my favourite Emily Henry love interest so far! I loved HarrietWyn and their love story <3

I really enjoyed the structure of this book and seeing how the story and their friendship/relationships evolved over the years. The topic of friendship was really well explored and the entire story was so full of feeling and emotion, I even cried at some points. It was extremely well written.

Reading an Emily Henry book is like putting on your favourite comfy hoodie; so comforting and familiar in the best way. I can’t wait to read whatever she writes next.

I made a playlist of songs that I listened to whilst reading, you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7BoKGGvs9LXQMMqoN5e1iX?si=r4cf6dTbRtuAr1HNUhXOdQ (Taylor Swift is heavily featured, obviously).

Thank you so much to Georgia Taylor and Viking books for the arc!