A review by sami_leigh
Beach Read by Emily Henry

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5
🌶️🌶️.5/5

“I’ve never met someone who is so perfectly my favourite person”

Every time I read this book I fall in love with it all over again. Through her characters Emily Henry challenges the stigma surrounding romance writers and female authors, and their works, in general. I am awed by the sensitivity with which Henry has woven together the complex and traumatic backgrounds (and present lives) of these MCs, actively avoiding any pre-packaged ‘Happily Ever After’ which would require either character to compromise their needs, or gloss over heavy issues to skip to the end. This novel balances humour with deeper issues, which are handled with care. Secondary characters bring an extra layer of life to the story, with found and unconventional family whose support - and meddling - is unwavering. Beach Read had me audibly snort-laughing from the second page, and after reading it four times I can safely say it does not get old. Forever on my Comfort Read list. ✨

“I wanted to know whether you could ever fully know someone. If knowing how they were—how they moved and spoke and the faces they made and the things they tried not to look at—amounted to knowing them. Or if knowing things about them—where they’d been born, all the people they’d been, who they’d loved, the worlds they’d come from—added up to anything.”

📚 First person POV (January)
📚 Enemies-to-Lovers
📚 Rival authors; this novel explores the stigma surrounding romance writers and treatment of female authors, and their works, in general. 😍
📚 Forced proximity
📚 BANTER! 🙌🏻
📚 Meddling family
📚 Feminist read
📚 Well established secondary characters; Shadi is my spirit animal and I want to keep her forever.
📚 Growth in the MCs; plot explores childhood traumas and family secrets impacting the characters’ self worth and relationships.
📚 On my comfort read list. Emily Henry’s books are always must-reads for me.

Gus:
“In college, I’d thought he was lazy about everything except writing. Now I wondered if he was simply tired, if life had beaten him into a permanent slouch, folded him over himself so no one could get at that soft center,”

January:
“somehow by being a woman who writes about women, I’ve eliminated half the Earth’s population from my potential readers, and you know what? I don’t feel ashamed of that. I feel pissed.”


⚠️ Parent with cancer, death of a parent, grief, infidelity (parent), child/domestic abuse (in the past), cult (investigated for a book), vomit,  toxic relationship, mental illness & going to therapy.
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