Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Beach Read

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Beach Read by Emily Henry

312 reviews

jeosullivan1's review against another edition

4.75

emotional funny 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

Content Warnings

emilywemily6's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book totally made me cry in the last 20 pages. I love Emily Henry’s writing, I get a solid romance, characters with depth, and it’s not all about the spice (though I’m totally here for it!). This book’s exploration of grief and reconciling the different sides we know of people (friends, family, and lovers) was really interesting and felt so real. I’m not usually a fan of the miscommunication trope, but Henry’s use of it is self-aware and feels so real- I would have held back from telling all too! And the miscommunication isn’t the main basis for the plot. So it contributed to the depth of the characters but didn’t draw out the plot. I ate this book up!

Content Warnings

abbeyroad1410's review against another edition

4.25

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Emily Henry has not failed me this summer. Now, if I was ranking this against Book Lovers and Happy Place, it would be my third pick (I know because I have them ranked on a Google Doc), but that did not make this book any less exceptional.
First of all, Emily Henry's characters are so well characterized that you can recognize versions of them in every day life. Most people have a Gus, who is so traumatized and stuck in their own heads that they can't decide what they want. They have a friend like Shadi who will come to them when needed and make jokes to cheer them up while also offering advice.
Speaking of Shadi, one of my highest praises of Emily Henry is her development of strong female friendships. In this book, Shadi is pretty absent, but you still see the thread of friendship throughout in their texts and small interactions.
Of course, I love the message that happy endings are possible. More so, I love the message that everyone has a slightly different worldview and they can be used to balance each other out, offering both realism, pessimism, and optimism.
Honestly, my biggest critiques of this book come from the fact that it's an earlier work and Emily Henry has since developed better writing tools. Here, the setting is underwhelming and less developed than in books such as Happy Place. The supporting characters are also limited and less developed than in books such as Book Lovers and Happy Place. They aren't huge drawbacks in Beach Read, but they are things I've come to appreciate in Emily Henry's writing.
My other critique is a personal opinion. I have a hard time believing a character was secretly in love with another character at any given time. Emily Henry does a good job of trying to show this rather than simply state in in Beach Read, bit that plotline always comes across a little contrived to me.
Overall, this was another fantastic read and shoutout to my friend Ashley for getting me hooked on these books.

Content Warnings

loxeletters's review against another edition

4.0

emotional funny hopeful

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

For what it was trying to achieve - being a romance book - it was very good. I was mostly interested in the writing aspects, but I did still enjoy the actual romance. I liked the character development and felt their problems, even the ones related to miscommunication, were believable and interesting. I only noticed some minor things that were a bit too cheesy or spelt-out too one the nose for me, but overall, a very solid book. I even cried a few times (to be fair, I cry easily).

Content Warnings

akswhy's review against another edition

4.25

emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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

The more Emily Henry I read, the more I like her… and the less I like Dead Romantics. I adore the “we’re fucked up individually but we’re happy together anyway” of it all.

Content Warnings

ktv's review against another edition

4.5

funny lighthearted 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

I loved Julia Whelan as the narrator for this. She rly bought to life all of the characters. Her voice is also nice.
I liked the slow burn aspect and how the book centered around January and Gus’s problems. I thought it would be more grumpy x sunshine but I ended up liking it the way it was. I liked the second chance thing too.
-0.5 stars because the spicy scenes were significantly different than the ones in take a hint, Dani brown and it threw me off. Definitely a me problem, not an Emily Henry problem! The order u read books in matters, and I shoulda taken that into account before diving into this.

Content Warnings

km4's review against another edition

2.0

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

agw622's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny hopeful sad 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: Complicated

It's complicated. I love how you get all the satisfaction of a romance book with a refreshing (though can be depressing) dash of a reality check. You get the feel that January wrote this book based on what you get from her character by the end. The main relationship is a messy romance kind, but the ones outside of that feel very real in a complexity sense.

Content Warnings