People We Meet on Vacation - Emily Henry

I heard about this book last year and it sounded like a great summer read, so I added it to our list! Everyone needs a good beach read in the summer right?

This book follows Poppy and Alex, best friends since university who take a vacation together each year. The book opens with an excerpt of one of their vacations five years ago, before we learn that Poppy and Alex had a bit of a falling out last year after their previous vacation. Poppy keeps alluding to what happened, never fully coming out and saying it until near the end of the book, but I'm sure everyone reading assumes they hooked up....in reality they kissed and then didn't talk about it.

Fast forward to this year. Poppy is feeling lost, not happy with her job and her life in general, and missing Alex. She works for a fancy travel magazine and gets to travel the world vacationing for a living. She is offered an amazing trip to Greece, but instead pitches an idea of a vacation on the cheap. She reaches out to Alex and is amazed when he agrees to go on vacation with her again, this one planned around his brother's wedding.

Alex and Poppy met on the first day of university and then again when Poppy needed a ride home and used a rideshare, not knowing that Alex was also from Linfield (they both describe Linfield as a small town, but Jen and I are from a small town, population 2,500, and both agreed, Linfield could not truly be a small town. When there is more than one high school, it is not a small town. When you don't know most of the people, or when most people don't know your parents, you are not from a small town....we could talk about this all day, let's just leave it at that). On the drive, they quickly formed a friendship and the vacation idea was born.

The chapters switch between the current summer and the vacations over the last twelve years. Some of the highlights of their vacations are:

• The first vacation is in Victoria, BC. This is one of the few vacations where we hear about the people they meet on vacation. On a trip to Tofino, they meet Buck, a water taxi driver with a love for weed and parties.

• The second vacation is in Nashville. Before leaving, Poppy's mother gives her a giant box of condoms to make sure they are being safe. Poppy assures her mother that she and Alex are just friends. This was one of the funnier scenes in the book.

• The fifth vacation is in Vail, Colorado where they call up one of Buck's old friends Lita. She takes them white water rafting.

• The seventh vacation is supposed to be in Sweden and Norway, but Poppy gets very sick and has to cancel. She encourages Alex to go alone, but instead he comes to New York to take care of her.

• The eighth vacation ends up being a couples trip to Tuscany with Alex and his girlfriend and Poppy and her boyfriend. Poppy has a pregnancy scare while there and it hits Alex hard. He ends up getting a vasectomy after the experience so he doesn't end up doing this to anyone in the future.

• The ninth vacation has Poppy and Alex going to Croatia. This is when the "incident" happens that is alluded to throughout the book. I had assumed they hooked up, but it turns out they just kissed and didn't talk about it.

In the current summer, we see Alex and Poppy make their way back together. There is a lot of tension in the beginning and Poppy keeps trying to make it a perfect week. They end up in a terrible air bnb with no air conditioning in a sweltering Palm Springs summer. As the week goes on they are drawn closer and closer, finally culminating with an interesting sex scene on the balcony of the air bnb.

But just when you think they have finally found their happy ending, there is another fifty pages of them not talking about what happened and what they both want. Eventually all ends happily ever after for the two of them.

Jen and I were both frustrated by this book. It was obvious from the beginning that they loved each other, but for all the conversations they had, they didn't talk about their feelings for each other. Both "didn't want to ruin the friendship" and convinced themselves that they should be with other people. And when they finally kissed, instead of discussing it and realizing they loved each other, they stopped talking altogether.

Jen had some excellent comments while discussing this book. One of my favourites was when we were discussing Poppy and Alex's friendship. Poppy mentioned that she knows what Alex smells like and thinks that's a normal part of friendship. Jen was quick to point out that she and I are friends and she doesn't know what I smell like.

We also had a hard time wrapping our minds around Alex's vasectomy. He did it because of Poppy's pregnancy scare. Why not just use condoms or other forms of birth control diligently? Why get a vasectomy? We couldn't figure out why he would be willing to take this step, but not tell Poppy that he loves her.

The sex scenes also felt out of place in this one. Jen described them as "Fifty Shades of Gray" moments that were too detailed for the type of book this actually was. I suggested it may have been worse for her because she listened to the audio book!

There were some redeeming qualities. Poppy's family was wonderfully quirky and the scene with the condoms was hilarious. Her family was one I think we would all like to meet. Alex's family was a bit more complicated. His mother died when he was young and his father was depressed, so much so that Alex became a father figure to his younger siblings. It's too bad these relationships weren't explored a bit more in the book.

The other fun part of the book was when they actually meet people on vacation. We enjoyed those parts more than the rest of the book and really wish the book had lived up to the title. If only they had realized they were in love early and then spent the book going on vacation meeting people!

Overall, we were underwhelmed by this book.

Susan - 📘📘📘

Until next time, have a cocktail, read a book, and be happy!