Book Review – Beach Read

Title: Beach Read

Author: Emily Henry

Publisher: Berkley

Publication date: May 19th, 2020

361 pages

4.5/5 stars

Goodreads Synopsis

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.

Review

“He fit so perfectly in the love story I’d imagined for myself that I mistook him for the love of my life.”

emily henry, beach read

I am obsessed with this book. Beach Read is the adult romance novel that you need in your life. January is going through a lot right now, her father just died, she learned he had a mistress for a very long time, and she just inherited their love nest. She also was dumped, lost her home, and has writer’s block – which doesn’t help matters as her next draft is due by the end of the summer. She moves into her father’s old house, and is shocked to find her arch rival from college is her neighbor. Augustus ‘Gus’ Everett is also an author, also having writer’s block. However, the two couldn’t author different genres if they tried. They team up to try & bust their writer’s block by writing each other’s chosen genres – and spend a LOT of time together as a result…

As much as this title would lead you to believe otherwise, this book is not entirely lighthearted. There are some serious topics tackled and discussed, but it is still an amazing romantic comedy. Janaury and Gus’ chemistry just leaps off the page, and they are both very funny and endearing. They communicate with each other via messages written on notepads and held up in mirrors ala Taylor Swift in the You Belong with Me video – which is completely heartwarming. And don’t get me started on the Gus in the tent scene…

The middle portion of this book has a slower pace which causes it to drag a bit. And I feel like there could’ve been more time spent wrapping up the bet they made – it could’ve just been longer and more detailed and I would’ve loved that.

I finished this book weeks ago and I still think about it pretty regularly – which I always find to be a great sign about how good a book is. It is definitely one I will reread in the future when I need to read an amazing book.

Happy reading, folks!