People We Meet On Vacation
By Emily Henry
Berkley, 9781984806758, May 11, 2021, 384pp.
The Short of It:
Not quite the resolution I wanted or needed but was entertaining and enjoyable nonetheless.
The Rest of It:
This pretty much sums it up:
Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love. ~ Indiebound
Poppy and Alex meet in college. They share a ride home. Two complete opposites. It reminded me a lot of the movie When Harry Met Sally. They don’t really have much in common but they vacation together once a year, even if they are with other people which is interesting. Can men be friends with women? They believe so.
The story alternates between past summers and the current one. The one where Poppy finally realizes that she is in love with Alex and has been for years. The thing is, she doesn’t think Alex is in love with her, but after a recent break-up she tempts fate and sends him a text to see if he’d be interested in a summer trip. She is a travel writer and what her employer can pay for a trip is a lot more than what she can afford on her own so why not take advantage of it?
There is a lot of back and forth with this story. A lot of he said, she said but also past and present time jumping. It took me awhile to get into it, maybe 60 pages? But I really enjoyed Alex so I stayed with the book. Poppy was all over the place but sweet and well-meaning. Together, they seemed wrong for each other but then again, opposites attract.
Towards the end, there was a lot of me thinking, let’s wrap it up which probably isn’t a good sign. This is one of those reads that I enjoyed but didn’t love or adore. As for the title, I pondered it. People We Meet on Vacation. In my opinion, the story has little to do with the people they meet. It has everything to do with them meeting up with each other every year and having to re-learn their likes and dislikes. Years can change people. Bad relationships can change people too. But good friends? They can last a lifetime.
I’ve not read Henry’s other books so I can’t compare this story with her others, but there was a enough in this book to like for me to try another book by her.
Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.
Book Chatter 
Still sounds like a good summer read, if it did seem a little too long and too back and forth.
It was a sweet story. Needed to be tightened up a bit towards the end.
If I didn’t have so many other summer themed books on my list, I would try it but, need to pass I think. It’s funny but the older I get the less I have patience with 20-30 something romance or drama stories:)
I have the audiobook but now I’m not so sure I want to listen to it.
One of my readers just said they listened to it on audio and enjoyed it. Maybe it’s better on audio.
I’m going to give it a try and I hope the audio is good because I’ve really been looking forward to the book.
hmm. It sounds like you would have written a better title for it. Maybe this one is a pass … too much When Henry Met Sally ha!
It was a sweet story and I liked the male character a lot but it took too long to get going, IMO.
I am hearing just so-so reviews of this book, but I’ve already got it on my TBR shelf so will get to it some time this summer. I think it will help that I have lower expectations going in and now I know to give it at least 60 pages. Thank you!