Just Read: “Beach Read” by Emily Henry

Read September 4, 2021 – September 5, 2021

Dear TBR Shelf – why have you let me stare at this book for months without reading it? You should have shouted at me, “This one. Pick this one up, now!” I’m glad I made a point to start reading a couple that have been sitting there because, my gosh, there are some serious gems patiently waiting. People We Meet on Vacation was the first Henry novel I read and I absolutely loved it… read it in ONE DAY! I didn’t post a review because time got away from me back in April but a former student recently encouraged me to post one, even now, so I think I just might. But first…

What is it about? 

January. Her life was crazy wonderful until it became tragic when her father died and a second life of his appeared at the funeral. She’s a successful romance author and her publisher is waiting on a new manuscript but January is so uninspired to write romance. Distraught, she is camping out at the lake house her father left her and hoping to turn out enough pages to submit by the end of summer. Queue the slow motion clip when Gus, a sexy writer who was notorious for short-lived situationships in college, enters the scene.

She remembers him and the almost steamy night back in the day but he seems to be drawing a blank, not so much as acknowledging their could-have-been past. They have a couple of run-ins and end up deciding to push each other, from a distance, to write their little hearts out. There isn’t much encouraging that can happen from afar and before you know it January is snapping herself back to reality because the cynic, Gus, doesn’t believe in happy endings. She cannot and will not let herself fall in love and everything she has ever known about love became a lie after her father’s funeral anyway.

What does it have?

• Father-Daughter Relationships
• Ghosts of Crushes Past
• Lakeside Town Quirk
• Romance Book About Romance Writer

I really loved this book. I would have finished it in one day but between the sun, yes I took Beach Read to the beach… to read, and my tired eyes, I had to stop 300 pages in. Henry writes the “modern” man many of us have experienced before, describing Gus through January’s inner dialogue. January thinks, “I knew how relationship-phobes like Gus Everett reacted when boundaries broke down, when things went from friendly to intimate, from sexual to romantic.” How many phobes of all things REAL have you dated? For me… ugh– heaven forbid you allow yourself to have an actual connection, am I right?

Is it worth reading?

Don’t walk… run to buy this book. You’ll laugh, cry, and feel inspired – dare I say, hopeful…