Book Review: Beach Read by Emily Henry

Image via Goodreads

Summary

(From Goodreads)

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.

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Thoughts

You GUYS! I cannot stress this enough – Beach Read LIVES UP TO THE HYPE! I swear to you! Let me tell you why.

First off, the story. Who doesn’t find two writers betting they can’t switch genres some type of magic? SUCH a cool idea in general, I mean does this really happen IRL? Can this happen IRL? If any authors out there have done this, please let me know!

Not only is the story interesting, but it also seems to be the perfect setup for a new summer romance to start, right? Well, kind of! Romance happens, yes (insert all the eggplant emojis here), but this book dives deeper into the mind of our two writers, and why they do what they do. Yeah, that just might have implied something heavier, right? IT DOES. I want it to. Because this book may be called Beach Read, but I think it’s more of a beach-to-deck read, because it’s heavy at times. If you think this is going to be a light, easy breezy read, you are totally mistaken.

The characters are to die for! I love January’s sarcasm, and the fun banter between her and Augustus was so cute to read about! Emily Henry wrote a really good enemies-to-lover trope, and even though it comes with some of the classic elements, I think it was written in a way that didn’t seem so negative, as some of these tropes get. Everything between Gus and January came from a friendly-ish place, so it was a nice refreshing take on this trope. (Keep in mind, I don’t read a lot of romance novels, so if you have any recommendations that are similar to this book, please share!)

Honestly though, whether you’re a romance lover or not, I don’t see many people hating this book. It was so fun and quick to read. Sure, it might be a bit deeper than your regular fluffly romance, but I think that’s what makes this book work. I love that it really went into the issues that January and Gus had, personal issues from family problems and trust. I think it was a great way to bring these two together, and ugh. I just LOVE this book, so please read it, and love it with me!

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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