Beach Read

This enemies-to-lovers story about a romance writer and a literary fiction writer who strike a bet to write their next book in each other’s genre blew me away with its hilarious dialogue and realistic emotional stakes.

January struggles to write another Happily Ever After upon learning her recently deceased father had a secret life with another woman. She goes to deal with his beach house, only to find that her college writing rival is her neighbor for the summer.

As part of Gus and January’s renewed rivalry, they go on a series of dates to teach each other about their… show more.

I am a sucker for the enemies-to-lovers trope. And January and Gus do it so well. The forced proximity of having these two college rivals as neighbors perfectly escalates the tension between them.

I also appreciate when romance novels aren’t afraid to touch on darker topics, and this book delves into some grief issues that make the characters feel so dynamic. For this reason, Gus is one of my favorite love interests that Emily Henry has ever written.  

This book follows a writer named January, who goes to her father’s beach house that he shared with his mistress after his passing.

I love it when a character's backstory has a unique twist to it, and I could feel January’s pain and confusion as she navigated her father’s complicated past. We get to see January grow as a person and also have a romance with the writer next door.

Love stories with complex character growth are my bread and butter, and this was the novel that started it all for me. 

Ah…January and Gus. They are not fans of each other, and they’ll be neighbors all summer.

Little does January know, Gus is still carrying a major torch for her ever since college. Funny, engaging, and achingly romantic, this book is a go-to recommendation for everyone I know who gets a little squirrely about reading a romance.

But I’m telling you—the little touches, the lingering looks delivered by a very tightly wound hand-flexer—our Gus—brought me to my knees with how I swooned. If you’ve never checked out one of Emily Henry’s books, this is the one to start with. 

Now that you’re acclimated to the s-e-x, you’re going to chuckle at how silly you were, thinking there was some massive divide between Books of Literary Merit and Books That Make You Happy. In fact, that’s actually the plot of the novel itself: a Literary author and a Women’s Fiction author challenge each other to write a book in the other’s category and sparks fly. A deliciously meta romp of, yes, impeccable literary merit.

January is a romance writer who has lost faith in love, even though she writes about it. Augustus is a cynical literary fiction writer who doesn’t believe true love really exists. The only thing January and Augustus have in common is a dose of writer’s block. So, when they find themselves living next door to each other, they challenge each other to write in each other’s genre with often hilarious, fractious, and romantic results. As the title suggests, this effervescent book is perfect for reading on a sunny holiday.

With a title like that, it screams perfect beach read. I loved this book from start to finish. It’s another of my favorite enemies-to-lovers. Also, I adored the mix of serious matters and humor. It was perfectly balanced. It had me cheering for January and Gus. Not only for them to fall in love but also to make peace with their separate, equally painful pasts. Last, it was cool that both of the main characters were writers. For me, it gave me another level of relatability.