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

lighthearted slow-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

1.5

Personally, I did not enjoy People We Meet on Vacation as much as I thought I did.

Alex and Poppy are fun characters, with an "opposites attract" friendship (turned relationship) that is quite sweet. The book itself is fun, carefree, and very nostalgic for trips I've taken with friends, yet it missed some of the complexity I was hoping for. Sure, there were themes of how Poppy's adolescence
and being bullied and accused of being a "sl*t"
that seemed to shape how she trusted and interacted with others, but I felt like she was written to be an "I'm not like other girls" girl, then the childhood wounds were sprinkled in to help her become more likeable/complex. I did appreciate Alex's character arc, and how his own childhood and relationship with his dad and brothers played into his relationship with Poppy. 
I also completely missed why the book was titled the way it was, since there are mentions of people they meet on their trips, but it isn't the central theme of the book; the story is about Alex and Poppy and their vacations together. I think the concept of meeting people on vacations is super fascinating and wished that Henry either leaned more into that or hadn't titled it the way she did.
Another gripe I had with the book was the ending. I know it's supposed to be a friends-to-lovers rom-com, so it's expected for the two protagonists to fall in love, but I thought that Alex and Poppy's futures just didn't line up
until the VERY end when suddenly Poppy realizes she doesn't like her career after all and wants to do something else, which is totally fine, but there wasn't really any indication throughout the story that she was unsatisfied with her job. It seemed like her dissatisfaction with the job that was her dream job at one point had been written in just to help Alex and Poppy get together in the end. In my opinion, I kind of wished that it went for the La La Land or The Light We Lost type of ending
. The chemistry just felt kind of off to me and
12 years is a LONG time, even for a slow burn and how they get together, in the end, is very anti-climactic for 12 years of secret pining. Plus, their fallout is not as "explosive" as I expected it to be. A kiss doesn't seem to make much sense for not talking for 2 years. I would have expected people in the late twenties to early thirties to be able to talk about it, instead of cutting ties and ignoring what's bothering them
. 
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