Review – Beach Read by Emily Henry

**Disclaimer: I was given a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.**

Title Beach Read

Author Emily Henry

Description from Amazon

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

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.

Release Date May 19, 2020

Initial Thoughts

I’m on a real contemporary kick these days. I’ve been alternating between fantasy and contemporary but I feel like after every contemporary book, I just want to read another. This is my third one this week. Also, my secret dream is to become a writer so a book about writers felt so right.

Some Things I Liked

• Enemies to lovers. My favorite trope. I just loved it here. The tension between Gus and January was fantastic and they just had the best banter.
• Speaking of banter, I really enjoyed the dialogue and references used by both main characters. I’d expect nothing less from authors as characters, but I really enjoyed it.
• “Happy for now.” I actually really liked this sentiment. Happily ever afters are great – they’re basically why I like to read. But, happy for now, is something that I think people take for granted too often. I loved that this book focused on the present and the characters didn’t let worries for the future bog them down.
• “The wo-orst”. Not sure if this was Emily Henry’s intention, but in my head, I heard that line as Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Rec and I laughed out loud.
• 27 Dresses vibes. I am not a big fan of Katherine Heigel, but I did like that movie. As soon as I read cynical Gus meets the queen of Happily Ever Afters, January, I knew that was where this book was going and I was all about that.

Series Value

This book feels like a true standalone. As much as I’d like to hear more about January and Gus, I feel like their story reached a nice conclusion. I’m very pleased with it and we really didn’t meet any other characters that would be worthy of a spin-off in my opinion.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed this book. Both main characters grew and learned so much on their way to finding happiness and I loved their story. This book had everything I wanted in a good rom-com.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommendations for Further Reading

• Well Met by Jen DeLuca – if you like enemies to lovers and down-to-earth quirky characters, try this series by Jen DeLuca. The second book is coming out in September.
• You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle – again, if you like the enemies to lovers vibes as well as characters moving to a new space to find themselves, try this April release.
• The Move by Whitney Dineen – if you liked the “starting over in a new town” vibes that Well Met had, try this book by Whitney Dineen. There are three books so far in this series, but this book (the second), would be the closest to Well Met.