Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - Happy Place

This book had everything. The sad parts, the happy parts, the sappy ones and everything was just kinda funny.

This was my first Emily Henry book and honestly because the e-book was on sale, and I very much loved it. I liked the chemistry of Harriet and Wyn, their friend group and everything.
It was very easy to read and the journeys of Harriet and Wyn each and together were inspiring.

Also, gotta give love for Cleo and Kim being a functional sapphic couple whose history in this book didn’t include homophobia because I wouldn’t have been able to survive that as well. I was already crying on the train ride home because of this book.

Content Warnings

wendahh324's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

5.0

I’m so drained from this book but in the best way possible

Content Warnings

meghanm404's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

Content Warnings

thatswhatshanread's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-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

5.0

Brace yourselves: I think “Happy Place” may have dethroned Beach Read as being my favorite EmHen book!! Gasp!!

I know. It took a lot for me to say that but with my whole chest I must confess that after reading this one, I think no other books need to exist. I mean, literally, that’s not true, but figuratively I mean that this right here is as good as it gets.

Somehow, each of Emily Henry’s books has found me at the exact right time I needed it. Like somehow the release date always coincides with whatever existential crisis I’m having at the time. I don’t know how she does it, how her writing answers questions I didn’t even know how to ask. How my heart and mind is so deeply ingrained in her stories that I feel like she’s stolen my identity or something.

“Happy Place” feels like your own personal love language, the characters are your very best friends, the setting is that of your daydreams without even realizing it. Goosebumps with every new jolt of affable dialogue, each new description of another word for love.

Harriet—sweet Harriet—is an over-thinker, kind and charming and brilliant, and whose destiny seems to be making others at ease before herself. Wyn—handsome, careful Wyn—is self-deprecating, afraid of his goodness, earnest and loving, better than he gives himself credit for. They are magical and beautiful and full of emotion, flawed yet puzzle-piece-perfect in their yearn for each other. They are both hard on themselves, but in different ways. For different reasons. An awareness of too much self. They are two people who so obviously still care for each other, who know each other better than themselves, trying to find their way back together. They are each other’s gravitational pull. Possibly the best depiction of the forced proximity trope I’ve come across because it is so specific and makes so much sense for the storyline, for them. God, I loved every nook and cranny of their relationship.

This book is like meeting up with a close friend you don’t see very often, similar to the characters’ situation in the book: you pick up right where you left off, everything is comfortable and feels like home but also different in a new way with the passage of time, of endings and beginnings. “Happy Place” is a lot about that. Things changing and moving, though keeping enough sweet sameness that can never be taken away from an established magic.

I adored the friend group in this book. Everyone has their own developed personalities. Every relationship has its own give and pull. I wanted to live inside that summer cottage in Maine with them, soaking in the happy, breathing in the nostalgia, aching with feeling.

I really loved how this book is about finding your own happiness, and the struggle it is to actually do that. I think for a lot of people at this age, happiness seems like it has to be this concrete thing that has to be achieved a certain way. But it’s not like that. It can’t be like that. Your happiness ultimately has to be rooted in yourself, not in what you see in others, or what others think they see for you.

“Happy Place” is witty but natural, edgy but soft, sexy but delicate. Every scene, every situation is created by Henry but doesn’t feel made up, not really. This is actually happening, people have likely experienced this in real life, everyday.

Books like this are the definition of sentimental, if a book you’ve never read before can be. I think it can—it’s happened every time I’ve read a book written by my favorite author, aka Emily Henry.

Content Warnings

gretchenplz's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful 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

5.0

I will be honest. I had incredibly high expectations for this book after Book Lovers. Chock full of my favorite tropes and from an author like Emily Henry, the bar was practically on Mars.

In the first half of the book, I was worried. The plot didn't really seem like a plot, there were so many characters, so many places, and so many events, and I was just waiting for something to happen, something to fall apart or fall together. And then it did and I couldn't stop crying.

I was so touched by how Emily wrote about friendships and relationships, how they change, how they grow, and how they stay together truly touched me in a way I did not expect and forced me to really look at myself through a critical lens and think about how I can be a better partner to my husband and friend to my friends.

This book ended up being more about friendship than romance for me. At the end of the day, I ended up indifferent to Wyn because

they were so obviously soulmates that it was going to work out in the end. I at first thought it would end like PWMOV, where they stay separate, go to therapy, figure their shit out, and then get back together, but was relieved that that was not how it ended!!!

I must say, this is a second-chance romance done right. I feel like so many second-chance romances miss the mark by failing to demonstrate enough chemistry both in the past and in the present. Emily definitely did not miss on that front.

But the friendships. That's it.

Parts of this also hit me right in the ~childhood trauma,~ especially when H talked about never learning how to fight with the people you love and you want to keep loving you after.

All in all, Emily Henry does it once again.

ALSO the

JANUARY AND GUS REFERENCE. I LITERALLY YELLED OUT LOUD.

AND DEATH TO STEM CAREERS MUHAHAHAHA sorry, I know they are important, but it gives me such gratification to see characters in artistic roles be so fulfilled.

Content Warnings

More...