Beach Read - Emily Henry

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really. (link)

Review: 3/5

If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I have an ugly ass green kia soul (named Kermit AKA the BRATmobile). So when a dinged up Kia Soul is mentioned, yah I’m going to feel a little patriotic! Add over-romanticization to that vibe, and I’m fully down. However, I felt less interested and committed to this book than Funny Story. As you can clearly tell from the ratings. Here’s why;

At 11% in, I “called” that January (main female character) was going to whip up her manuscript by the end of the book because this “asshole” Augustus (main male character) made her believe in love again. Also the fact that he’s her “rival” from college is so ridiculous to me in theory, but I’ll never judge holding a grudge (because I do it so well). I loved the idea of Augustus challenging January to help with her writer’s block by offering a “genre swap” . I think this challenged my initial judgement of her realizing life is all fairy tales. I also liked how the theme of love versus cynicism was shown in January and Augustus’ different writing styles.

The plot twist of including grief intertwined with finding out her father was having a continuous affair was thrilling but heartbreaking, and that’s JUST THE BEGINNING. And of course they are both “damaged goods” with emotional baggage that parallels each other. Duh! (Don’t you love the idea of being imperfect and finding the person who is different from you but accepting of your imperfections? I do.)

I’m tired of slow burns and “will they, won’t they” but I guess books would be boring if there wasn't some kind of doubt or challenge to a relationship. Still, I’m tired of knowing someone’s going to end up together (like most romance main characters) and just waiting to get to that part.

One minor opinion I have about Augustus is that I LOVE him… maybe even more than Miles from Funny Story. He’s just so damaged and taught (hi, Roman Kitt reincarnation!)

A beef I have with this book is the making out/sex scene at the old cult site where there were 10s of deaths… A slight misread of the vibe. That’s like me going on a first date to a Concentration Camp memorial. It gives me the Sarah J. Maas vibes when Feyre and Rhysand had sex among the “dying sounds of soldiers” in the battle encampment. You can judge me for saying this, but I believe there is a time and place for being horny, and a mass grave is not the time nor place. What would Jesus say? Buddha? Allah? Literally any form of higher power?

Love the consistency of Emily Henry promoting safe sex by having her characters use condoms. I also LOVE forced proximity… that means I’m going to have a hot neighbor sometime in my future. Right?

The quote “I don’t need snowflakes if I have January” made me barf in my mouth.

Anyways, the book was okay! Not my favorite, but give me an emotionally damaged, dark & curly haired mmc, and I’ll make do. I figured this playlist is a little darker than Funny Story’s due to the darker nature of the baggage Gus and January carry.

Spotify: LINK