A review by juliad55
Book Lovers by Emily Henry

emotional funny reflective fast-paced

5.0

love. love the critique of the romance formula and the type of woman it privileges. love the commitment to a character who knows what they want, who is career driven, who cares deeply and works hard and can learn and change but isn’t told that being career driven is wrong. love reading into the idea that it’s important that we don’t stereotype/caricature ourselves based on our media consumption, and that there’s more nuance to who we are as people than the surface level reads of our occupations and demeanors. loved and felt complicated about the big sister element of the story, the responsibility of it, because… yes, just yes. and i cares about the characters more than i thought i would so THANK YOU emily henry for that dialogue. i appreciate how this book gets into the thick complicated area of how relationships between people who love one another (family members and romantic partners alike) really work, but then it’s also just like…. sweet! things that resonated with me in a horridly sappy manner — reorganizing the local bookstore. ordering two drinks because lightweight and getting sick the next day (HA), wanting and needing a desiring life to be lived around literature, sisters (SISTERS!), caring about people so deeply it hurts, loving and longing for places and feelings, and dancing to james taylor under sparking lights. ugh. this one digs a layer deeper than other romance novels i’ve read lately, and i think it works so well to delve into so many layers of complication, because the reality is romance does not exist in a vacuum.