Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Happy Place by Emily Henry

27 reviews

hmwoodward's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Emily Henry delivers with her usual humor, chemistry, and banter with this one. I always feel like I'm there beside the characters in her books from the way she describes everything. I'm seriously craving the smell and feel of sunscreen and ocean water and the smell and taste of buttery lobster thanks to this read!

While not dissimilar to her other books, this one is a second chance romance and has a different feel and tension to it because of that dynamic. Harriet and Wyn are stuck together because of the group vacation and because the years of their relationship have led to a friend group that's venn diagram is just a circle. They are navigating the ramifications of their breakup for themselves and how it complicates things for everyone around them. All this while an old group of friends tries to live out their glory days for the last trip to their go-to spot ever and are all dealing with their own separate issues. 

This book realistically address the challenges of a relationship where you grow up together and friendships where you grow up together. If you aren't careful, you can grow apart entirely. 

I also really felt for the main character in her struggles with her career and her future - I have certainly been there before myself. It was just another relatable and realistic aspect in this one.

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jenna_dash's review

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Difficult to get into. Limited insight into the cause of the conflict until the resolution, creating limited sympathy for any characters.

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emmacartlidge's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25


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immovabletype's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I laughed, I cried, I swooned; I did all three at the same time and ended up choking on my own spit. Emily Henry is my happy place.

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bookishmillennial's review

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emotional funny reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
 disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial  

This was Emily Henry's worst book. I'm being a brat but it was indeed NOT a happy place. It was a horrible place. These people are horrible friends to each other. The resolution is one of the most privileged white woman shit I've read, and I don't like anyone in this book, so I was not rooting for them. I couldn't stand this book, cry about it! 

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bringmybooks's review

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

 you’re either gonna love it or hate it and idk what to tell you

B̷R̷I̷N̷G̷ ✨ 𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗪 ✨ B̷Y̷P̷A̷S̷S̷

I honestly & truly don’t think this book is going to be for everyone, and I honestly & truly don’t think all of Emily Henry is for everyone (4 starred her first two, lukewarm on them in retrospect, DNFed Book Lovers, don’t @ me). All of that being said, I honestly & truly loved this book.

(Also, did I finally break down and decide to read this because the MC loves Murder She Wrote? no comment)

There are some books that I think have universal appeal, and others that hit harder because of the life you’ve lived and the experiences you’ve had, and I think that was a huge part of why this hit so well for me. I can totally understand why people would look at this and go “miscommunication trope at it’s finest, yawn” but (as someone who’s not typically a fan of this trope) I felt this was a super realistic portrayal of trying to figure out who you are and what you want as you grow older, especially as you try to do it in a relationship with someone you love who is growing up alongside you.

One of my gripes with some of EH’s work is that it’s too … quippy. Nobody can be “on” 24/7, zinging barbs back and forth with whomever they come across from the moment they open their eyes until the moment they go to bed. Sometimes even the quippiest person just calls their partner and says, “Hey, do we need milk?” without there being a joke attached to it, you know?

That being said, I felt that that the characters in this book were way more realistic, and I actually believed in them, which made it a lot easier to stay invested in the story & in their relationships. It’s got so much heart in the way that growing up in a friend group is described, especially as we start to want different things that don’t align with how our friends or partners are growing up.

tl;dr this one brought me back to EH and I’ll be giving her next one a read! 

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stardustandrockets's review against another edition

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5.0

I don't understand why people cried reading this book. I will say that I relate a lot to Sabrina's want to not get married because she didn't have good views on it growing up. And I relate a whole heck of a lot to Harriet and her family. My parents got pregnant with my sister before they got married and they were incredibly poor for a long time. Then my brother happened. Six years after that I came along and 3 years after that, my younger sibling. There's a 12 year age gap from oldest to youngest and all that time my dad worked two jobs just to barely make ends meet. My parents fought all the time and I used to wish they'd just get divorced. Though, as a kid, I didn't realize what that would mean for either of them. My dad would be fine (probably), but my mom would have nowhere to go and no job to fall back on. It seemed they were in a marriage of convenience with no real way out. Did they love each other? I'm not sure. I think things started out under shit circumstances and they made the best of what they had. So yeah, I relate a lot to Harriet and what she was going through. Not asking for help when she very much had several people in her corner. Wyn also hit home a bit because of his undiagnosed depression. He didn't realize anything was wrong until it was really wrong. Functioning at less than optimum your whole life, you don't realize that that's not how everyone goes through life. That was me. Being undiagnosed AuDHD and thinking I was just lazy at school work and not realizing I was actually struggling. But I didn't have the words to say "Hey, I really want to do these things, but I can't make my brain do these things."

I think it was a good thing that Harriet and Wyn called things quits for a bit. Wyn was able to find out what makes him happy on his own, Harriet discovered that she wasn't happy on her own and that her job was making her incredibly miserable. But the whole time she wanted Wyn because he was her happy place. That's how I feel about my partner. It doesn't really matter what we're doing, as long as we're together.

So while I may not understand what made people cry, I think I relate the most to this book. Even if it's still not my favorite. On a personal level, this is the one that hits home the most.

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frantically's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I've got a confession to make — I can't remember any plot of all the Emily Henry books I've read but I do know that I always have a very good time with them, as I did with this one.

The characters were all really well fleshed out and even though there were a lot of them, I learned to love them all on their own.

I love love love how Harriet's story ended. I don't want to spoil it but it's just so realistic and I wish we would get more of it not only in litfic but also romance.

A great reading experience :)

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Title: Happy Place
Author: Emily Henry
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.00
Pub Date: April 25, 2023

T H R E E • W O R D S

Summery • Heartfelt • Lackluster

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college — they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now — for reasons they’re still not discussing — they don’t.

They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Well, well, well it looks like I am in the minority... yet again when it comes to an Emily Henry book. After finishing this one I actually sat and contemplated why I just don't love her books like everyone else seems to. Happy Place to me was just okay, nothing absolutely amazing.

I will start out by repeating myself, that Emily writes banter unlike anyone else. And she also does supporting characters very well. I loved the friendship aspect and the idea of an annual friends getaway. But that also left me wanting more of supporting characters' stories (which I kind got in the third act conflict). Another thing this book did incredibly well? Make me want to visit coastal Maine. The descriptions - sights, smells, food, beauty - all of it made me want to road trip.

And yet, I just didn't buy what Harriet and Wyn were selling. The romance didn't seem believable. In the beginning I preferred the past timeline way more than the present day, and halfway in that switched. It's quite possible my expectations are always way to high going in, but it felt forgettable.

After reading all of Emily Henry's adult romance novels and not fully understanding the hype, I think I am finally convinced her stories are just not for me. And yet, here I am already having added her 2024 release to my TBR, so the marketing team is definitely doing something right. Don't let my experience deter you from picking this up, because this book has certainly garnered its fair share of love.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of the second chance romance trope
• Emily Henry die hards

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"Everything is changing. It has to. You can't stop time."

"Like even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters." 

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karirae7's review

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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