Book Review: People We Meet on Vacation

 

People We Meet on Vacation

Emily Henry

Overall: 3/5

Plot and themes: 3/5

Characters: 3/5

Writing style: 4/5

Attention-grabbing: 3/5

They met at college orientation, they clicked at the end of their freshman year and they were inseparable best friends for ten years after that. They took vacations together every summer, until one year when it all went wrong. Now, they haven't spoken in two years and Poppy has had a hard time feeling happy like she once did. But she's finally decided she's not giving up without a fight, and she invites Alex to go on another vacation with her, one where they can hopefully fix everything that went wrong two years ago. 

Books that flip between the past and the present always give me anxiety. If there are two things I don't like in contemporary romances it's second-chance-romances and the miscommunication trope, this book had heaps of both. The conflict is built and built and built, you find yourself wondering what could have possibly gone wrong two years ago to destroy a friendship that was so strong and built on so many wonderful experiences? Then it all kind of falls flat. As a real person, maybe it would be easy to see where the disconnect was. As an omniscient reader, Poppy and Alex both seemed like a couple of hypocritical idiots. I didn't see the point of all the drama, I didn't see the point of all the heartbreak. 

I liked the banter, I thought Poppy and Alex worked really well together. Which I think was the whole point, there was no conflict at all on that front because they felt flirtatious and romantically involved with one another from the start. Their relationships with other people felt superfluous and kind of weird. I liked the explanation of how they got where they were going and the beauty of their friendship shifting into something else but the "hurdles" felt like they would drive me absolutely insane if I knew them in real life. I think it was entertaining and it definitely will be remembered, it just seemed like a lot of drama for no real reason except to cause drama.