Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Beach Read

The more I read of Beach Read, the more I wanted to read. However, I have some issues with the beginning and the end that kept me from loving this book.

Things I didn’t love:
- The cover, the title, and the blurb were all very misleading. All of those add together to market a romantic comedy, which is not what I would call this book. I would not want to read this in the summer on the beach, this feels like a piece of literature with a romance plot more so than a romance book with some other subplots. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not what was marketed to me and also not what I was looking for when I picked this book up.
- The books starts with two chapters of backstory dump. This is not my favorite way for a book to start. It’s not lazy, but it’s not the most creative way to convey all of that information to a reader. I feel like the first chapter would’ve been more interesting if it had been January at the funeral having these thoughts and then encountering Sonya instead of her thinking about all of it. She didn’t actually speak to a human face-to-face until the third chapter, all of the dialogue was in her memories, and that made it really slow for me to get into this book.
- the ending felt rushed. I wanted to spend more of the book with January and guess in a defined relationship. Not necessarily a third of the book, not necessarily earlier in the book, but I wanted more book after they got together before the epilogue.

And now that that’s out of the way, let’s end with the things I did like!
- Gus in January had the most adorable friendship. I prefer the grumpy sunshine dynamic in friendships to in relationships because I feel like it’s not actually true in relationships. Usually the grump isn’t grumpy with her and the sunshine person can be cloudy with their person, but they were genuinely grumpy and sunshine all throughout their friendship and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
- The middle of this book was excellent. The writing style hit its flow, the plot was moving, the fun side characters were there and felt more present, and the pace kept me wanting to read more.
- I like the premises of this book. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about reading a book about authors, because it can (and was) be very meta but I thought it was cute!

What I recommend this book as a pallet cleanse book? No. Would you recommend this book to people who like romantic comedies? Probably. What I recommend this book to people who like women’s fiction? Probably. This book is a little weird and that I can’t tell if it’s a romance book or a piece of literary fiction, which makes it hard to find the right person to read it. But I did enjoy it, though I probably won’t read it again. 3.5 stars.

Content Warnings

stardustandrockets's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

darineelbakry's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

readwithde's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

cwallace1005's review against another edition

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funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

2023 edit: Pretty much ditto to what I said before. When I started, I was a little less hooked than I normally am with Emily Henry, but it hooked me pretty quickly still. It is heavier than either PWMOV or Book Lovers, but I think it works really well. There are great characters and significant development of our MCs. And again, I was charmed by it!

2022
I was charmed by it :)

Maybe it's the English-major/writer in me, but I loved the premise of this book. January and Gus are two writers (fairly successful in their own genres) having writer's block and they come up with a competition to get over it. Again, totally my style because I thrive on competition, especially if it has a deadline. I liked their banter, for the most part, and I thought they were well-written and had significant development for a novel in a genre that isn't known for its deep character development. There were several heavy topics in the books. January's struggle with her memories of her dad are especially poignant and relatable. Some of the "romantic" scenes were a little forced or awkward, but it didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying the book.

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