Beach Read by Emily Henry Published by Berkley on 2020-05-19
Length: 380 pages
Reviewing Paperback, eBook from Amazon
Rating:
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.
Sometimes to get out of a reading rut all you need is a sweet contemporary romance 😉 Beach Read by Emily Henry has been on my TBR since its release last year so I was really excited when it was chosen for our #COYER book club read in February. I wound up buddy reading it with Lenore from Celebrity Readers, and both of us devoured it. She listened to the audio so be sure to check out her review if you’re an audio reader to see her thoughts. Beach Read is sure to tug at your heartstrings and leave you smiling by the end.
January Andrews has had one hell of a year. She lost someone she loved, learned that this person kept a secret life, and then the man she thought was her forever dumped her. Now she’s moving to the lake house, the house where a secret life was lived, in the hopes of finding answers and some closure. With a book deadline looming on the horizon, January needs to write and writing romance for a woman who has lost everything is not going to be easy. I really like January and her entire character arc through the book. She is someone that is easy to relate to and recognizing how hurt she is by all that has occurred in the last year just made me want to reach through the pages and hug her.
Then there is August Everett, January’s college crush and nemesis, unbeknownst to him. Turns out he is her neighbor on the lake. Also an author, Gus tends to write darker literary fiction. His stories rarely have happy endings. When January spills to him that she is having a hard time writing, the two of them come up with a challenge. He’ll spend the summer writing a romantic comedy, and she will try her hand at literary fiction. There’s only one catch: no falling in love with each other.
This banter between the two characters is what made the book. I love their interactions. They are polar opposites, at least that’s what January thinks, and poor Gus! He is not the most relatable person. He is private and has protective walls around himself that rival Mt. Everest. Yet there is something about January that has him opening up. Billed as an enemies-to-lovers romance, it’s very light on the enemies portion. This is mostly one-sided. I’d think this fits more under a second chances trope.
Overall I really enjoyed Beach Read. This was my first book from Emily Henry, and it certainly won’t be my last. If you enjoy sweet romance with laugh out loud moments, you are in for a treat. Be sure to add Beach Read to your shelf today!
About Emily Henry
Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the now-defunct New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it.
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