A review by mayawinshell
Book Lovers by Emily Henry

4.0

fun! solid 4 stars. i wonder if i would’ve favored this one over beach read if i’d read it first, because i will say that one of the first things i noticed was how similar the frameworks were for the two books: man and woman from the book world (this time both editing/agenting instead of writing), woman from new york (local instead of transplant), colleague-enemies to lovers, cheeky sarcastic banter, a love story that unfolds over one short summer in a small town full of colorful characters and bad food/drink spots… and both end in marriage lol. that DOES make it a little less fresh of a read, when you read one after the other and they’re so similar. but once i got over that hump and decided to just immerse myself in this set of characters, i did enjoy myself; i appreciated nora’s capacity to be immature/childlike and deeply emotional even at her big age—specifically about libby’s move. i mean, the way she kept running through the list of NY things that libby’s leaving would taint, that’s the EXACT thing i did when i was utterly taken by surprise by my parents announcing their divorce to me at age 18. i felt too old to be acting so childish but i couldn’t help it, being excessively sentimental and stuck in the past, and to me it was reassuring to watch this 32-year old character with all those emotional walls up act so similarly. because i think it’s good to be emotional and i hope to never grow out of it! so my favorite thing was her relationship with libby, ultimately. a relationship about routine, about the little things you observe about the people you love most. with respect to her relationship with charlie— HAH, i almost wrote gus— it was good, i believed the romance! i think i prefer the looking-but-not-touching tension of beach read to this one’s it-started-out-with-a-kiss-how-did-it-end-up-like-this, because when the characters Finally break that tension it’s sooo rewarding (more rewarding than “what are we” or “i can’t have anything serious rn” stopping a horny scene mid-action… no?). but yeah, i like what they had. and i like the precedent emily henry’s romances seem to have for Vulnerability with one another being the thing that can turn a casual ‘like’ into LOVE in just a few weeks. it makes so much more sense than in a lot of rom-coms. idk how i feel about her marriage pipeline but i do always see the poetic justice of when, how, and where she puts the proposal, so it’s FINE, i GUESS. oh and one more gripe: emily henry (who grew up in cincinnati) writes about new york like a total transplant when her character is supposed to be a native new yorkahhh, and i’m not from new york either but i AM someone who loves the city she grew up in, and i can tell she’s just in awe of the weirdness like she’s brand new. SOME of it reads like the main character is local (e.g. her observations of the street near the end of the book, with the guy selling keanu reeves dvds on a table on the sidewalk, that felt real) but a good chunk of it feels like if *i* were to romanticize walks on the golden gate bridge or whatever. anyways, i did like this a lot!