A review by isxelle
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

adventurous emotional reflective 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

3.5

one thing about emily henry is she is going to drag me through EVERY SINGLE EMOTION.... including boredom (not really an emotion but just roll with it). IM SORRY. i think it just happens to me when we jump from past to present in books. i be skimming most of those past pages to get back to the present. all the present pages i quite liked though.

also i think this book made me knock down my love for friends to lovers by few good pegs.

the girl bsf vibes in this were just ew.

emily henry probably did it the best anyone could do with a trope (?) like that though. i would be pissed as sarah but honestly FUCK sarah bro.

that woman fucked up my boy alex. she literally traumatized him with those last words she threw in. now he is going to constantly have to work over this fear SHE CREATED. 

ugh alex. after that first trip, this man was GONE. HIS WHOLE LIFE has been about her since that moment. ugh. this man watched her fear of being pregnant by some other guy NOT EVEN HIM. NOTHING had even transpired between them yet. AND HE GOES OUT and gets a FUCKING VASECTOMY. idk if it was emotional cheating but god did it feel like it. good thing he realized and ended things with sarah immediately

 

this might be the only book where i would have actually liked an epilogue that included

 
 them having kids.

it's more of an epilogue of them working toward what they want, and i wanted an epilogue where they already GOT what they wanted and i am seeing them then. ah well

some of my highlights and quotes below

“He goes on, quiet and controlled once more. “I want all that stuff my brothers have,” he says. “I want to get married and have kids and grandkids and get really fucking old with my wife, and to live in our house for so long that it smells like us. Like, I want to pick out fucking furniture and paint colors and do all that Linfield stuff you think is so unbearable, okay? That’s what I want. And I don’t want to wait. No one knows how long they get, and I don’t want ten more years to go by and to find out I have fucking dick cancer or something and it’s too late for me. That stuff is what matters to me.”” - Alex Nilsen

““You could have always looked,” he says in a low voice. “Just so you know.” 
“Well, you could’ve too,” I say.
“Trust me,” he says. “I did.””

“God, Poppy, of course all of it was because of you. Everything is because of you. Everything” - Alex Nilsen

“I’ve been trying to stop loving you since that night you went inside to make out with the pothead water taxi driver.” - Alex Nilsen

““No,” he says, “what it makes me is someone who was embarrassed to still remember exactly what you were wearing the first time I saw you, and what you ordered once at McDonald’s in Tennessee, and who needed to preserve some small measure of dignity.”” - Alex Nilsen

““I meant it, and I knew I meant it,” he says. “It wasn’t an impulse. I knew for years that I loved you, and I thought about it from every single angle and knew what I wanted before I ever kissed you. We went two years without talking, and I thought about you every day and I gave you the space I thought you wanted, and that whole time I asked myself what I’d be willing to do, to give up, if you decided you wanted to be with me too. I spent that whole time alternating between trying to move on and let you go, so you could be happy, and looking at job postings and apartments near you, just in case.”” - Alex Nilsen

“I’m not a vacation from your real life,” he says. “I’m not a novelty experience. I’m someone who’s been in love with you for a decade, and you should never have kissed me if you didn’t know that you wanted this, all the way. It wasn’t fair.” - Alex Nilsen

““I’m afraid of you realizing I bore you. Or meeting someone else. Or being unhappy and staying. And . . .” His voice catches. “I’m afraid of loving you for our entire lives, and then having to say goodbye. I’m afraid of you dying, and the world feeling useless. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep getting out of bed if you’re gone, and if we had kids, they’d have these horrible lives where their amazing mom is gone, and their dad can’t look at them.”” - Alex Nilsen

 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying