People We Meet on Vacation

If you're looking for a book that feels like a vacation? This is exactly what you're looking for. (At least if you like rom coms with a friends to lovers trope, that is!) I had read Beach Read by Emily Henry last year, and found it relatively entertaining. I didn't love it the way so many others seemed to. But, I did like it enough that People We Meet on Vacation has been on my radar since its release. You know those books you have that just sit? Waiting for the right time to be read?? That was this book. I've had a copy sitting on my shelf since last fall, knowing I would get to it... eventually.

Turns out that time was this past week. Feeling that January blah crunch, and feeling a bit under the weather to boot, I figured it would be the perfect winter read. Nothing too thought provoking. Nothing to really have to process.

This book did not disappoint. It far exceeded my expectations - which does not happen often in this particular genre. (At least, not for me.) Poppy and Alex are polar opposites, and best friends. When they initially meet the first week of college, neither thinks they will see the other ever again. But, on a fateful shared road trip home, they manage to connect; asking all kinds of questions to fill the silence and the time. By the time they reach their destination, an unlikely friendship has formed. Poppy is loud, outgoing, an opinionated. Alex is quiet, thoughtful, and reserved. Poppy is the one that sort of pulls him from his shell.. the person he can be silly and vulnerable with. 

They start to take yearly trips - even when they live far apart. In the beginning, these trips are as cheap as can be. As the years pass and Poppy is working for an upscale travel magazine; the trips become more exotic, more luxurious. But something (and you don't know exactly what for the longest time!) happens on one of these yearly trips, and they just stop talking for YEARS. 

After two years has passed, Poppy reaches out to reconnect with Alex via text. They plan the summer trip. A trip on which Poppy hopes they can mend fences and move forward from what happened in Croatia. This novel sparks with tension between Poppy and Alex as the years go by - the chemistry between them is fabulously written, and asks the question so many times about the 'what-if" factor in a platonic friendship. Amusing from start to finish, this novel has me wanting more from Emily Henry. (Especially if it's friends to lovers - I'm telling you - FIRE!)