Feeling unexcited with her job as a travel writer, Poppy realises that the last time that she was truly happy was when she was with her best friend Alex, which was two years ago on their vacation to Catalina before they stopped speaking. Knowing that she must act fast to rekindle their friendship, Poppy desperately reaches out to Alex and they end up planning a nostalgic trip to Palm Springs for Alex’s brother’s wedding. But even though everything on their trip from back spasms to broken air conditioners seems to go wrong, Poppy’s romantic feelings towards Alex become harder to ignore. Just as things are finally starting to go right, Poppy returns home to New York, and Alex to Ohio, to do some major self-reflection and contemplate some major life changes.
The novel is told from Poppy’s perspective with flashbacks to previous trips with Alex placed intermittently throughout. People We Meet on Vacation is a contemporary friends-to-lovers romance novel and would be of great interest to those who enjoy travelling. Considering that most of us are not able to travel right now due, this book is the perfect way to escape reality and take a mental vacation this year, especially since Poppy and Alex do a lot of travelling and end up going on a bunch of fun adventures.
This was my first time reading a book by Emily Henry and it was really enjoyable! I was hooked right from the start because I wanted to know what happened on the Catalina trip that forced Poppy and Alex to stop talking for two years and whether Alex and Poppy became more than friends. It was great reading about all the previous trips that Poppy went on (with Alex as well as for her job as a travel writer) because they also sounded super cool. As mentioned, this book is a great way to escape, but it would also be an excellent summer read because of all the travelling.
The are a few minor negatives about this book including that it’s slow to start, but once Poppy and Alex got to Palm Springs, the action started to pick up and the book became more engaging. Then there’s the regular switching between past and present, which was a bit difficult to keep track of, and it was also frustrating having to wait until towards the end of the book for a flashback of what went wrong between Alex and Poppy during their Catalina trip.
Overall, People We Meet on Vacation was an enjoyable read with a unique plot and quite the satisfying ending! It would be a great read for fans of Talia Hibbert, Jojo Moyes, or Robyn Carr, and this jet-setting novel would be perfect to read during summer while sitting by the beach or pool.
People We Meet on Vacation is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 11th 2021.
Will you be picking up People We Meet on Vacation? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
With one week to win back the best friend she might just be in love with, a travel writer plans the trip of a lifetime in this sparkling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read.
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart–she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown–but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together–lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
