Review by abigailnoack - Beach Read

abigailnoack 's review for:

Beach Read by Emily Henry

4.0

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I feel like I shouldn’t have to preface this, buuuuut I’m quite a newb to the adult contemporary romance genre as I am still a baby adult. And I’m not really sure why this one grabbed my attention out of all the adult romances that are gaining popularity at lightning speed, but it was probably Jenna Clare

I really loved the premise of two writers stuck in this small beach town and both struggling with their novels. Obviously, the ideal time to read this book would be in the summer, preferably read on a beach, but I only recently acquired this book, and so I used it to help cure my seasonal depression and hatred of winter. I do wish the beach setting had been used more in the story and it could have been more vivid.

Something I really like about this particular romance storyline is that, on the surface, it seems very tropey, but it’s really not. There’s a little bit of second chance romance, enemies to lovers, and slow burn, but it isn’t cliche at all. It takes the basic elements of those tropes and uses them totally differently. January and Gus used to know each other, but not really romantically, the author halts their attempts to be enemies, and instead of feeling the pain of a slow burn, it actually felt a bit normal. Maybe I’m the only one who expects relationships to progress at least a little bit slowly, instead of just one date, and instant hookups, but idk. January and Gus are both really struggling with a lot of things: their writing careers, past relationships, old family drama, and certain fear of starting new relationships. Their relationship with each other slowly develops into something that they each cling to, a bit of hope and a glimpse of happiness I think. A beacon of light. They had lots of flirty banter, but equally as many (if not more) heavy, but tender and graciously handled discussions about grief, getting older, family, and forgiveness. For some reason, I’ve been (accidentally) reading a lot of books lately that are about family relationships and family secrets. I loved that this book balanced the heartwarming romance with the tough conversations.

After a whole book discussing the merits of happy endings, Emily Henry actually had me questioning whether she would deliver one for Gus and January or not.

One weird thing I had with this book is the breaking of the fourth wall. Maybe it comes with having writers as protagonists, but there was several comments like, “if this were a book I was writing, it would happen like this…” It was just a little weird at times. I really would love to read both the books that Gus and January wrote. Maybe the adult version of Fangirl turned Carry On.

This book could have been a 5 star read for me if I had related to the characters a bit more. I think it’s also something I might enjoy even more a second go around, or possibly several years into the future when I’m older.

Content Warnings