Review: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year the  they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong? ~ Goodreads

Source: E-ARC provided by Berkley Books via Netgalley 

The Book Pusher: Amber from DuLivre (her review)

~ People We Meet on Vacation was the easy (slight - but lower - angst) read I didn't know I needed.

~ I loved following Poppy and Alex throughout the years (through present tense and flashbacks) from their first meeting and on each and every (platonic) vacation together since. Drinks and good food were had, hilarity ensued, deep conversations unraveled. Other loves came and went but their friendship endured - until it didn't.

~ THE BIG SECRET plots don't usually work for me. It takes so long to build up to the truth of what happened that the pay off is rarely worth it. The secret is always...seriously?? That's it?

 Something happened on Poppy and Alex's last vacation. Something bad enough to tear them apart after a decade of friendship and vacations and led them not speak for two years. 

Without spoiling, I'll say it might have been a tad anti-climatic in scope but it felt true to their personalities to me and somehow worked. For me. 

~ Poppy and Alex's chemistry is 🔥🔥 but they are also quite believable as best friends and I loved how the author allowed them have other meaningful relationships and grow on their own before coming back together and sealing the deal. 

Overall: I was reading another book at the time that was so dark and depressing so this book was like a breath of fresh air. Like having a vacation and new friends for the summer!