Reviews with content warning for Grief - People We Meet on Vacation

I was a puddle of emotions for weeks after reading this. I still can’t get Alex and Poppy out of my head. The flashbacks and buildup of their friendship through the years had me straight up falling in love with them. Alex is one of my fav MMC’s ever. This story is just the sweetest.

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abidavisf's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

Emily Henry and Julia Whelan are the ultimate book dream team. How Whelan manages to capture the world that Henry creates and bring it to life so vividly is astounding. I feel a part of the story and, when I’m not listening, I’m thinking about everything I’ve heard and what I’ll hear next.

You and Me (People We Meet) On Vacation is a beautiful tale of love, found family, friendship and, dare I say it, millennial ennui. It teaches its readers that there is more to life than the goals we are taught to aspire to in our life, that, though we’ve been taught that these things will bring happiness, it is 1. not a failure to not achieve them and 2. they are not the only thing that can make your life worthy and your presence valuable.

Poppy and Alex have a piece of my heart, and they always will.

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memoirsofabooklover's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted fast-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

3.0

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nineinchnails's review

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted reflective sad 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

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23/12/2023

they could never make me hate u <3333

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first read: 13/07/2021

was crying almost the whole way through i love poppy and alex so much

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foxmulders's review

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lighthearted reflective slow-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

3.0

i wanted to love this like book lovers but … it was just ok

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pboonmee4's review

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4.25

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justagirlwithbooks's review against another edition

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3.5

“Tomorrow we will love each other a little more, and the next day, and the next day. And even on those days when one or both of us is having a hard time, we’ll be here, where we are completely known, completely accepted, by the person whose every side we love wholeheartedly. I’m here with all the versions of him I’ve met over twelve years of vacations, and even if the point of life isn’t just being happy, right now, I am. Down to the bones.”

This is my third Emily Henry book, and I really don't think that her writing style is for me. I'll still read Happy Place, but that's honestly just to get her off my tbr. I don't know if I should read her pre-romcom books, her YA era. I do enjoy YA more than adult, but I don't know if I will like her old writing style. It could be a hit or a miss for me. Anyways, onto the actual book...

Unlike the previous two books I read, this one is a friends to lovers instead of a rivals to lovers, so it was different! It reminded me of Love and Other Words, because this book also had a past and present timeline. I loved Love and Other Words, it was so close to being a 5 star read, apart from the ending. I enjoyed this book a lot less than Love and Other Words. The writing style was still cringe, but at the same time there were some good lines mixed in. And Emily Henry can write banter. She can write friendships. Where this book falls flat for me is the present timeline, Alex's mixed messages about not remembering the friendship that he once had, the fact that the past timeline only focuses on the trips instead of throughout the whole year (so we can really see their friendship grow outside of a summer trip context), the miscommunication, lack of angst, and the anticlimactic ending. Just like with Love and Other Words, I felt like their issues got resolved too quickly to be realistic. Alex and Poppy still feel like two characters that want completely different things, and they have miscommunication issues that don't bode well for the future. The reason that they had a two year break in their friendship was realistic, albeit anticlimactic compared to Love and Other Words. I was just getting annoyed that they loved each other, and that was so clear, and they both secretly knew and realized that they loved each other, and they weren't telling each other how they feel. It was frustratingly exhausting.

I'm going to read Happy Place next, so we'll see how that goes. Right now, my ranking is:
1. Beach Read
2. People We Meet on Vacation
3. Book Lovers

There's not that much of a difference between PWMOV and Book Lovers, because they're both 3.5 stars, it's just that Book Lovers was more boring than PWMOV in my opinion.

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jenniee_reads's review

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted sad 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

Honestly Emily Henry can do no wrong and this was exactly what I needed to get me out of a reading slump that I was so deep in. I love that the story focused on their friendship more than anything. Obviously it’s a friends-to-lovers trope, but their romantic relationship didn’t feel rushed. Definitely a slow burn but the banter between Alex and Poppy was excellent and I found myself laughing out loud so much throughout this entire book. Something about Emily Henry’s writing pulls me in so easily and I cannot wait to read more from her. Definitely an auto-buy author at this point. Overall a fun, easy read.

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