Poppy and Alex met at University but were never a couple. Though each year they went on holiday together until 2 years ago when something happened, but what? Poppy wants to restart the annual holiday but when the travel magazine she works rejects her idea for a 'Holiday on a Shoestring' she asks Alex to go with her.
Telling the story through their annual holiday over the last 12 years, how will it all end?

In a time where travel is limited, I LOVED living vicariously through Alex and Poppy's annual summer trips. The book centres around the current summer vacation Poppy and Alex are on with various flashbacks to previous trips to show why things got to where they are which I really enjoyed. This was actually one of the few friends to lovers situations I really enjoyed and it very much gave me younger "When Harry Met Sally" vibes with the love interest not being an arsehole like Harry. I appreciated how the book handled characters feelings throughout the years, even while with other people, without there being any cheating behaviour. Honestly the only downside for me was that Poppy was such a strong character and in comparison Alex felt kinda two dimensional at times.

Overall this was a refreshing, sweet, emotional, fun read. It's perfect for Summer and I would definitely recommend it. I can't wait to see what Emily Henry does next!

"Beach Read" is one of my favorites read from last year so I'm really excited to read this book and very happy that I got an ARC from the publishers. Emily Henry did not disappoint with this book. Her writing is so beautiful. She makes me feel so many things with how she described things and how she wrote this story. The characters (Poppy and Alex) are lovable and interesting in their own ways. Their dynamic and banter are fun and amazing. Other minor characters from the book are also fun to read.

One of the things I like about "Beach Read" is how it's not just about the romance of the characters and this book was no exception. I can't explain it clearly, but the line from the book, "purpose matters more than contentment" represented one of the book's main themes which I relate to so badly. I also really loved how Poppy and Alex discussed and worked out their issues by the end of the book.

The only thing I was disappointed with was how short the chapter where it explains how the two characters drift apart from each other. It just felt abrupt. Overall, it was fun, cute, and an easy read, although I still prefer "Beach Read". This was a very heartfelt story and I will definitely look forward to what Emily Henry will bring out next.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House UK for providing me an ARC.

You and me on vacation

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I really enjoyed this romance. It was a sweet read and I found I kept wanting to listen to more.

It follows Poppy and Alex over several years on their annual holiday together, and is pretty much all about how their relationship develops. I don’t usually like books that flit forward and back in time without any logical order but that actually really worked with this one to slowly build the story and the characters.

If you’re not a romance lover this probably isn’t for you, but I really enjoyed it.

A light hearted easy read - 3⭐️

Alex and Poppy have been friends for ages, and they go on a vacation every year. Or they did, up until 2 years ago when something happens that makes them not talk to each other for two years. We follow them on one possibly last trip that could rekindle their friendship or definitely ruin it forever.

The overall verdict is that I really enjoyed it. It was entertaining, cute, laugh-out-loud funny at times.

Two different timelines kept this engaging and fun, which in turn means you're just sitting down, not wanting to put down the book. We're kept on our toes by a thing that happened in the past, but this, for me at least, was such an anti-climactic moment. We finally find out what it was and I'm like....That's it? That's all? I felt a bit deflated afterwards.

Characters: Both Alex and Poppy were well-written characters. Completely different, but both pretty realistic, though I felt slightly immature for their age. Their banter was really funny, and it was one of the highlights for me. They both a flair for drama, but only towards the end...Felt a bit unnecessary.

I really enjoyed this, and I know this will be a favourite for many. It totally makes sense! It just didn't quite get to that point with me, it really didn't blow my mind, it doesn't feel like it will stay with me forever or that I will want to reread it.

Who would love it? If you like stories about vacations, writing, travelling, friends to lovers, second chance stories.

I didn’t want this book to end and couldn’t put it down. A brilliant read. The future and the past to get where you are today.

This is Friends to Lovers Romance. This is my second Emily Henry book I have read, and I have loved both books of hers I have read. I truly did not want this book to end. The two main characters where on this weird dance of friendship but wanting more this whole book. I found this book to be everything I wanted in a cute and fun romance. The characters where so great, and the two main characters where so different then the normal cute romance book characters. The vacation in this book is a H*** vacation that the characters did not want to end because they where there with each other. I loved all the things that went wrong because it made this book everything it is. This book is so great. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (Berkley Books) or author (Emily Henry) via NetGalley, so I can give honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

Thank you fpr the opportunity to review this book.

When I read Beach read I belonged to the minority who wasn't impressed but I wanted to give Emily Henry one more chance. I'm so glad I did! I love this book!

The structure was great and I thought it was clever done to see how the feelings actually was there the whole time but was slowly revealed. I'm impressed!

Emily Henry is back with what will be one of your favourite beach reads this summer! See what I did there? I know, I'm hilarious.

But seriously, this book is just as brilliant as the last. It is well written, the back and forth between the current holiday and all the moments from the previous ones that uave helped formed a friendship is brilliantly done.

I liked Poppy a lot, I understood her worry and frustration and I too felt very protective of Alex. They bounce off each other and it was great to read.

The main suspense in the book is what happened two years ago to cause them to stop talking and though though when we found out it felt very much like a mountain and molehill situation, it did make perfect sense within their miscommunication and desperate attempts to keep things platonic.

Overall, this second book was brilliant and has confirmed I will be all in for any others 🙂

Oh, bless your heart Emily Henry for writing a contemporary romance novel that mirrored real-life. Nothing over the top or unbelievable.

The characters are unbelievable, the drama was believable, the ultimate conflict was believable and the resolution.....believable.

I believed what the characters were thinking and feeling. These two who are so afraid of wanting something because it seems so real, but running in the opposite direction, because it is too real. Loved it.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this one. I will be promoting the heck out of it when it is time.

Alex and Poppy have nothing common, yet a fateful car trip sees them become the very best of friends.

As their lives take them in different directions, they vow they will always spend one week of their summers on vacation together. So, ensues a decade of trips to far flung corners of the world. Until 2-years ago when it all goes terribly wrong, and they haven’t spoken since.

This summer, circumstances have brought the pair back together. But can they repair their friendship whilst ignoring the obvious truth that has always stood between them?


I really enjoyed “Beach Read”, so I was looking forward to this one even though the friends to lovers trope is not one I favour. However, I soon came to find that I was not warming to the main protagonists in the same way.

I felt their antics and refusal to be open with each other hard to believe of characters that were supposedly in their thirties, particularly when it came to Poppy. I was completely on board with her wanderlust and zest for experiencing life, but her outlook and reactions were somewhat better suited to someone fresh out of college. Therefore, as the story was only told from her point of view, I found my eyes aching from the frequency with which I was rolling them, and I would have preferred a little of Alex’s voice to tamp her down.

That said, I still found the story highly readable. It was light and easy-going, with the occasional dip into more serious matters. This novel is perfect for a summer holiday read when you want to switch off and just turn the pages for a couple of hours on the lounger.

A really good book, one to take on holiday with you. I liked how the book moved from present back to all the holidays they had taken before and how Poppy and Alex had reached the pint they had in their friendship.

i am not usually a fan of friends to lovers romances, but this was amazing and has made me change my opinion on them!

the romance aspect of this story was so so good, the ending was so cute and made me want to fall in love even more. the epilogue ended the story perfectly, and was probably my favourite part of the book.

this is the first book i have read with a traveling aspect, and as an avid lover of traveling i must say i am now a fan!!! especially since covid has prevented me from traveling, i felt like i got to see a lot of places via this book. i loved the flashbacks to the previous holidays and the whole idea was great!!

i really enjoyed this book, cannot wait to read more books by emily!

Everything I enjoyed about Beach Read was definitely present in Emily Henry's second book.

Loveable characters? Check.
Humor? Check.
A cute romance? Check.

When Alex and Poppy met, they didn't really like each other. Carpooling together for a trip back home changed that, and forged a strong friendship between them. They strike a deal: they'll spend the summers together on vacation. But after their trip to Croatia, they haven't spoken to each other in two years. Determined to fix everything that went wrong, Poppy suggests they spend some time together in Palm Springs. She'll plan everything, and it'll be perfect, except for how everything goes wrong.

This is a pretty fast, enjoyable read. I genuinely enjoy Henry's writing style as well as her characters. I really loved the strong friendship between Alex and Poppy; their connection felt palpable, even after two years apart. There are plenty of hilarious situations and sweet moments, and a lot of pining on both sides (also a lot of denial on both sides).

I will say that the buildup to Croatia was huge and Croatia itself was very anticlimactic for me. What happened really didn't warrant two years of silence. I also thought the ending was overly dramatic for the sake of being dramatic, which doesn't take away from it also being cute and sweet but sometimes, less drama is more, and this needed a bit less.

I think I'm also coming to realize that I'm not a huge fan of dual timelines in romances. I didn't hate the past timeline, but I did enjoy the present one more. The structure of the story with the timelines is reminiscent of The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary, but I definitely enjoyed this one a lot more.

I loved 'Beach read', so I was thrilled when I received this ARC. Poppy, the protagonist of the book, is a travel writer with a magazine that seems like a fictionalised version of 'Conde Nast Traveler'. She's going through a writing slump and can't seem to find inspiration, and decides that it's because she's missing her yearly vacations with her best friend from college, Alex. Something happened, on a vacation 2 years back, and the rest of the book is told in alternating chapters, one set in the past, starting from Poppy's first vacation with Alex leading up to the fateful one 2 years before the present, and the other in the present, where Poppy's trying to reconnect with Alex. I was hoping that given the protagonist's work, the chapters about her travels would let me vicariously take a vacation. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Poppy is my definition of a nightmare traveler- the sort who cares more about the perfect social media post rather than the experience. The chapters dealing with her vacations are only about her thoughts and feelings about Alex, which would be fine if she also talked about the place- which she doesn't at all. I've read Lonely Planet guide entries written more evocatively than this, and Emily Henry is a better writer than that. Her chapters on Tuscany and Napa Valley make both places sound exactly the same, and it's odd that the focus is only on vineyards when Tuscany is so rich in history and culture . She also seems completely dreadful at planning, which is surprising given that she started off as a travel blogger. Alex was a well written character, even though we don't get chapters from his point of view. The central relationship really didn't quite click for me, and I ended up wondering about ancillary concerns- can Poppy really know so little about being cautious about rental cars and Airbnbs that may not be as perfect as they claim? What does she write about then, given that she really doesn't seem to notice anything about a place?! How does she afford medical insurance, when she claims to not even be able to afford a change of place of stay from what is clearly literally making her ill? I was really glad that she's mentioned as getting migraines, because I get awful migraines , so I was hoping for some decent migraine rep, but she drags poor Alex all around a quite boring zoo, in blazing heat, and he's the one who gets dehydrated, when someone who gets migraines wouldn't even dream of doing that. So why was that tossed in, did the writer forget?! Clearly when I'm more bothered about the protagonist's medical insurance and migraines than a happy ending, the book really isn't doing it!
I'll still give it 3 stars,because it took my mind off the situation right now, for 2 hours, without losing my interest. And right now, what more can I ask for!

Oh, I just loved this one. So different from Beach Read, more messy and selfish, but still so charming and romantic.

fernweh (noun)
1. the feeling of longing for far-flung places
2. how I feel after finishing People We Meet on Vacation

On vacation, you strike up conversations with strangers, and forget that there are any stakes. If it turns out impossibly awkward, who cares? You'll never see them again.

This was neither bad nor good, but it has more to do with me not being a fan of the trope "best-friends-to-lovers". I'm sorry, but I don't get the appeal of people being best friends for YEARS (in Poppy and Alex case 12 fucking years), everything being platonic and then one day they decide to bang. It really took you that long to get your shit together and I don't get it. 💀

Poppy and Alex's story is told in past summers and present summers. The past summers are all their summer vaccations they took over the years leading to the summer two years ago after one fateful night changed their friendship (you have one guess what happened, but it's really not that big 😪). The present summer, Poppy is contacting Alex by accident. They are starting to talk again after two years of silence. After having a midlife-crisis Poppy decides to take a risk and ask Alex to go on another summer vacation with her. They decide to go on a trip together to... restore their friendship I guess.

This paragraph pretty much sums up the whole story
Years of undying love, occasional jealousy, missed opportunities, bad timing, other relationships, building sexual tension, a fight and the silence afterward, and the pain of living life without him.

So here we have Poppy and Alex dating other people throughout the 12 years on and off, hurting them, while secretly pining for each other. And I don't think that is fair to all the guys and girls they dated. Duh, there is a reason why the women Alex dated never liked Poppy or that Alex didn't like any of the guys Poppy dated. Why are they so dense. 💀🤚

"I thought you didn't like holding hands," I say. "And you said you did," he says. "So, what? I just get whatever I want now?" I tease. His smile flickers back into place, calm and restrained. "Yes, Poppy," he says. "You get whatever you want now. Is that a problem?"

I think Poppy and Alex were cute together as best friends. I don't feel the chemistry or sparks between them. I like how Alex has several sticks up his ass and how Poppy gets him to do things outside his comfort zone, but I probably forget about their romance the moment I write the last word of this review. It was cute and nothing memorable. For the most part this was a 2.75-3 stars read, but then that scene happened at the end when Poppy went to Alex to make her big declaration and Alex and Poppy telling e/o their biggest fear.. it made me feel something so bonus points for that scene.

"You are, you know?"
"A fighter?" I say.
"My home," he says, and kisses me.
We are, I think. We're home.

I'm happy to say that I am an Emily Henry fan. Beach Read is a book that's stayed with me ever since I first read it last year. I loved the blend of romance and general fiction, and I was really excited to her see what she did with her second book.

It didn't disappoint.

You and Me On Vacation is the story of Poppy and Alex and the twelve year slow-burn romance that defines their relationship. They first meet when they start college, convinced that they'll never see each other again, and then every Summer their lives intersect and eventually become a series of Summer vacations and opportunities to explore the world together until one vacation it all goes wrong. At the beginning of the book, they're not longer speaking and Poppy is in a creative and professional rut. Missing her best friend, she contacts him on a whim, proposing a last Summer vacation together.

Admittedly, slow-burn romances are not always my thing (which is not to say I don't enjoy them, but I am pretty picky about the ones I enjoy), but this book really captured my attention from start to finish. Poppy and Alex are messy millennials who need to work on their communication, but have a long history together and path forward into the future together as well. Emily Henry is so clever at writing these smart, but flawed, characters who have to work at what they want without making it uncomfortable to read about. They're relatable and honest and real.

The story is told in a series of present day moments interspersed with flashbacks to Poppy and Alex's past, all of which are woven together to tell the story of their past and present. It's a romance, so there's an HEA and it's a well-earnt HEA by the time we get there. I was on their side from start to end and just wanted them to realise their feelings for one another and reconcile their long, complicated past.

I'm not much of a traveller, but the descriptions of the places they travelled and their adventures together was just wonderful (and kind of escapist, in the current world climate) and I know this is going to be a popular summer read.

I loved this. I really enjoyed that you got to understand Poppy and Alex's history together and that there was a slow build up. Just as good as going on a real holiday

Emily Henry is my new favorite author. She writes the best scenes. I laughed and smiled while reading this. And I loved Alex and Poppy and their grand vacations. This was definitely a favorite and I can’t wait for EH next book.
EH specializes in writing how people get each other. She writes just what I want. The struggle, the friendship, the kisses and longing. The undeniably chemistry and romance. The fun.
I thought this book was wonderful and I want all my friends to read it. I. Loved. It. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to Penguin UK via Netgalley.