Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Beach Read by Emily Henry

25 reviews

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Really really enjoyed this book! This is my first time reading Emily Henry & I understand the hype now.

Beach Read felt like a Sarah Dessen book but all grown up.


I like that it wasn't just a fluffy romance. She dived into heavier topics like death, grief, childhood trauma and abandonment issues. The cult storyline/subplot(?) was really interesting and I liked how it tied into
Gus's
story.

I'm happy we got actual details about the book January was writing instead of a vague sentence or two. It felt like I got to read 3 books (
Beach Read, Janie's book, and the cult interviews (Gus's book)
) in one and I absolutely loved it. I guess the changes in tone and setting was great for my ADHD brain. But it also didn't feel like too much was happening at once.

I enjoyed the slow-ish burn between January and
Gus
. Although this is a romance book, I genuinely wasn't sure if they'd end up together in the end.
At some point, I would have been happy to see her (literally) sailing off into the sunset all by herself.


I would have liked to see more sexually intimate scenes or at least make the existing ones a bit more explicit, but that's just me (a girly who grew up reading smutty fanfics 👀🤭).

I have daddy issues so some of this book wrecked me. Looking at you, chapter
25
!! I was bawling my eyes out, tears and snot rushing down my face and onto my ereader. But imma be real, that just made me love the book even more lol.

Though I read this book in summer, I didn't have the privilege of reading it on the beach, but I think it would be a perfect beach read. ☀️🏖📖💛 Can't wait for the movie!

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funny inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing tense medium-paced
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

I've been in a reading slump for the last few months and I am very glad this the book that broke me out out of it. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
funny lighthearted tense 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

This book is so cute omg

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional hopeful 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: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
funny lighthearted reflective 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: Yes

A romance. Set in a fictional beachside town in western Michigan. I got homesick reading about it. Yeah, the two author characters are fine and, yay, they fall in love. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful
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 mean, it's a rom-com set in a lakeside town about an author with written block, getting it on with another author/guy she fancied in college. It has it's flaws but ultimately it's a great, feel good rom-com.

Some things of note:
-Bless her for
not reading the letter from her Dad immediately.
I'm glad she
found she had so many more of them to hold onto.

-The sarcastic banter. Top notch.
-You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.
-The part where
her father's affair partner forces her to listen to what she has to say when she's clearly already crying and not ready to/interested in listening was brutal. Just because you feel like you need to say something doesn't mean she has to listen!

-
The cult stuff
felt a bit odd to include in a rom-com of this vibe. I'm assuming that this is the cater to
the true crime obsessed?

-Them finally
breaking the sexual tension with sex... In the tent by the burnt out graveyard of the cult? After they'd both been so affected by seeing it? But somehow immediately forgot about that?
Like what?
-The 'this can't get any worse, then the Labrador farted' bit 😂
- Further to this,
if they had just set the tent up for keeping their laptops dry if it rained, surely they wouldn't have brought sleeping mats and sleeping bags? So how did they spend the night? Surely it was the most uncomfortable place to have sex then sleep?

- Is it just me that found the ending really
stupid? How is 'oh yeah, I ignored you after my wife turned up because I wanted to go back with her when she asked but actually after 24 hours I guess I like you a lot more' good? That's so hurtful!

- Mix that with
the 'marriage is the worst and if I think about it, you're the only person where the idea of it doesn't fill me with utter dread' and it's comes off even stranger.
Flash to the epilogue where
they're getting engaged a year after the start of the book/meeting (again). I get that he was saying marrying her didn't feel like an awful idea but with it being in what was basically a speech about marriage filling him with dread it felt odd.


When I started the book, I hated it. It was the 'I'm a romance author and just luuuvv talking about my life in third person, oh what am I like!' but at the start that almost did me in but this was thankfully dropped almost immediately.

I almost stopped reading pretty quickly but I'm glad I kept on with it and ultimately, it was a really fun rom-com and exactly what I was in the mood for.

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