Beach Read

I’d heard many great things about this book and while it was good, for me it was honestly just okay. January’s character was rough around the edges and I never felt anything through her because she seemed distant. For Gus, he read underdeveloped as a character and I couldn’t connect with his humor. The story, for me, read like a buzz, the story just skimming the surface of what the author really wanted to say, and both characters being authors, I found it odd. A great blurb, but the story just wasn’t strong enough to hold my attention.

You know those books that are super hyped up and then you read them and realize that they were NOT worth the hype? Yup, not the case with Beach Read by Emily Henry. This book is worth the hype and more. Anti-Romancer’s beware: this book is definitely a romance. And I definitely have a crush on Gus. Hard. Who doesn’t love a grouchy, almost-but-didn’t-that-one-night-in-college, who ends up not being so prickly after all? Or a snarky, super sarcastic, super hilarious girl who ends up having a soft spot for a certain neighbor. Beach Read is not as mushy as it could have been, it’s not as predictable as you might think, and it is definitely a beach read. Or…you know a backyard read, maybe while your daughter plays in her sandbox.

January is having a severe case of writer’s block after her world turns upside down with her father’s death. She’s second guessing life as she knows it. Under deadline, she goes to her dad’s lake house and discovers that her new neighbor is a fellow writer from college. Gus and January dare the other to write in the other’s genre and successfully publish. They swear to help the other with research through weekly experiences of what embodies an HEA versus a believable massacre.
This is my first book by Emily Henry and I really liked it. It is refreshing with a good balance of light-heartedness and sorrow.

Sweetly romantic with richly developed characters. Couldn’t put it down!

As the Disney folks reminded us in Beauty & the Beast, it’s a “tale as old as time.” But author Emily Henry has put her unique stamp on a classic tale, and made it more than just a romantic romp. Beach Read may have a fluffy title, but there is real substance to Henry’s story of two writers who must overcome heartbreak, and set aside their preconceived ideas and assumptions about each other, and life, to forge a relationship.

January has come to North Bear Shores, Michigan for the summer. Her previous books — romantic comedies — have sold well, but the royalties have stopped flowing in and she’s down to just a few dollars in her bank account. Her next book is due at the end of the summer, but she’s suffering from a severe case of writer’s block that she needs to break through in order to meet her deadline. She’s endured a lot in the past year. Her beloved father’s sudden, unexpected death was followed by shocking revelations about his life. January learned everything she knew about love and life from her parents. An only child, her parents doted on and supported her. But more importantly, they modeled a loving, committed, demonstrative relationship that she held up as an ideal. Once, when she was a child, they briefly separated, but soon reconciled. To January, it seemed that her family always emerged from troubled times stronger, with more love and laughter than before the dark days. Her father stood by her mother through two successful cancer battles. So January was flabbergasted to learn that her father had an extramarital relationship that spanned years and took place on weekends at his secret lake house. She found out about the affair at his funeral when a strange woman introduced herself as an “old friend” of January’s father, and presented January with an envelope and a key. January immediately knew why the woman was there, and her suspicions were confirmed when her mother hissed, “Sonya,” revealing that her mother had known about her father’s relationship. But her mother refuses to discuss the matter. Sonya tells January that her father wanted her to have the beautiful house on Lake Michigan. Now she needs to dispose of her father’s personal property, sell the house, and “write a romance despite having recently lost close to all faith in love and humanity.”

January quickly discovers that her next-door neighbor is none other than her college rival, Gus. In the ensuing years, Gus has used his full name — Augustus Everett — because he has become a published author of a serious book that remained on the bestseller list for five weeks. But in college, he was known as Sexy, Evil Gus, and January was “minorly besotted with him and his prose.” January felt Gus didn’t take her seriously after she presented him a short story to be critiqued and he told her, “Let me guess: Everyone lives happily ever after. Again.” At that point, January was not yet a romance writer, but she was writing “romantically, about a good world, where things happened for a reason, where love and human connection were all that really mattered.” During college the two of them competed for recognition and writing prizes, but barely spoke until one fateful night at a fraternity party . . .

January and Gus are reunited in his aunt’s local bookstore and their journey to happily-ever-after begins. Gus proposes a bet. He will spend the summer writing a romance, and January will write the kind of “bleak literary fiction” that Gus has previously published. They will take each other on field trips designed to illuminate the important components of the type of fiction each will be writing. Gus takes January to the burned-out remains of a cult tucked deep into the forest and she accompanies him when he spends hours interviewing a survivor who was raised there. January takes Gus line dancing, to a drive-in movie, and on other romantic adventures. They agree that “whoever sells their book first — with a pen name, if you prefer — wins.” The loser will have to promote the winner’s book by writing an endorsement for the cover, recommending it during interviews, and choosing it when judging for book clubs. Gus throws in another stipulation: “Promise not to fall in love with me.”

The secret to Beach Read’s charm is the crisp, snappy, and frequently hilarious conversations between January and Gus as the weeks pass. There is also much they don’t say as each struggles to regain confidence in their writing . . . and themselves.

Henry credibly examines both January’s grief and rage. January feels she can’t write another love story because the stories she crafts mean so much to her, and she can’t deliver a book to her readers that she doesn’t believe in. After all, her whole perspective on life and relationships has been disrupted, rocked to its very foundation by her father’s deceit. She was so close to her parents, but also felt pressure not to add to her parents’ worries as her mother fought for her life. For years, January was so afraid that her mother would die, she did everything she could to make her parents proud, spending time with them, and publishing her first book at the age of twenty-five. She even fell in love with Jacques, a handsome doctor. Now her father is suddenly gone and she can never ask him all the questions that keep her up at night, never confront him with her frustration about all the years she spent carefully constructing a life free from complications. She has broken off her long-term relationship with Jacques, realizing in the weeks following her father’s death when she was depressed and questioning everything she had always assumed to be true, that he could not provide the emotional support she needed. Now she’s alone, unable to talk to her mother about her feelings, broke and desperate to fulfill her commitment to her publisher, and living in a house where her father spent time with the woman who was not January’s mother.

Although January began writing romance novels because she “wanted to dwell in my happiest moments, in the safe place my parents’ love had always been,” Gus, in contrast, found inspiration in his troubled childhood, “to try to understand something horrible that had happened to him.” And his writing block has been occasioned by more recent heartbreak that he gradually reveals to January.

That the “will they or won’t they” story takes a predictable path does not detract from the enjoyment of going on the journey with January and Gus. Henry populates the story with an eclectic cast of supporting characters, including Gus’s aunt Pete and her wife, Maggie, who are genuine and endearing. January’s first-person narrative is emotionally raw — January lays bare the innermost thoughts, doubts, and feelings that make her empathetic, likable, and authentic. She achieves just the right tone. The characters of January and Gus are fully developed and nuanced, especially as they discuss the art of writing, and their dissimilar approaches to the craft, but ultimately learn how much they have in common. They challenge each other as writers and people, and their egalitarian relationship is a welcome departure from many romantic comedies that depict a weak woman chasing a strong man. As the relationship between January and Gus blossoms, there is no power disparity.

Beach Read is a delightfully fresh retelling of a tried-and-true story. Two enemies challenge and compete with each other and, in the process, learn things about each other that causes them to see each other in a new, appreciative way. That leads to romance and a happy ending. Beach Read lives up to its title in the sense that it is an ideal story in which to get lost on a hot summer day on a beach, by a lake or pool, or in a hammock in one’s own back yard.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.

Beach Read was an enjoyable summer read.
It is so hard to categorize this book. It is a second chance romance for two writers who knew each other once upon a time. It is an enemies to lovers story for two people who seem to disagree about everything. It is a sweet romance that is fraught with discontent and sadness.
I appreciated reading about January and Gus and loved how they challenged each other. They were both compelling characters who were more than they initially seemed.

4+ Stars!
Beach Read fit nicely within my favorite reading genre – women’s fic with romance, drama, wit, and swoon. Was it perfect? No. Was it perfect for me? Pretty much.

Gus was my favorite type of hero and he was deliciously battered and jaded. There were some predictable elements to the romance, but it didn’t negate the swoon factor that built to a crescendo in the middle of the second half. Major swoon. The author nailed the tender and sweet dialogue, descriptions, and sensuality between the two as they ventured from friends to more. The overall story ventured in and out of light and melodramatic, but with nicely written transitions that created a believable second chance romance.

This was a resonating read for me.
The book covers the issue on parent’s death, betrayal, family illness, HEA’s, change of life vision, finding yourself all the while, having a long a romance in the side. It was a perfect read for me this quarantine.

It is a story about losing your vision and mantra in life after one event and the process of accepting a new vision of the world and finding a new perspective. This book reminds me of Susan Elizabeth Philip’s, ‘Heroes Are My Weaknesses’.

Gus and Theo are almost so alike in their writing and disposition. Although the two main female characters are not.

The start of the book gives off a bleak, defeated air and later in the epilogue, you can still feel the shady cast but a little sunlight peaks through.

Breeze, easy read. Loved it. A perfect book after reading the wonderfully intense The Painter. Beach Read meant a little more to me, I met my wife in a read and critique group twenty-five years ago where I was reading my first manuscript. Beach Read has a complex set up or conflict, which is done with verve and an economy of words. There is a big coincidence in the beginning to make the story work, but I got through it fine. The two main characters switch roles, one writes literary fiction and the other writes, “romcom,” (Romantic Comedy). They have writer’s block and decide to switch their books/genres. Another odd coincidence was that I just finished reading a literary book that was dense with wonderful prose, The Painter by Heller, and then found myself reading a romcom. I may have related to this book more than others because of all the references to writing—loved that part of it.
I’ve never read romcom before (started this last year) and I think the reason I am really enjoying this type of book is that they are about more than anything else, hope. And in trying times like these who doesn’t need a tad bit of hope?
Too often the “story telling” in Beach Read turns into talking heads and threatened to toss me out of the fictive dream.
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to those who enjoy romantic comedies.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.

4.5 stars. I loved the story here, I really did, there were just some things that had me confused.
I loved January and I understood her. She was such a complex character and her pain felt visceral at times. This story was raw and left me with some super emotional feelings. Throughout the whole book you see things though January’s POV so it’s a little hard because she has her own opinions and views. It’s important that you understand that her pain leads her to feel certain ways.
Gus was cranky and I knew I was going to love him. I love a grumpy hero. These two had a history together and when they meet again, sparks instantly fly. I loved it when Gus finally opened up about his past and his issues. I felt so bad for him.
There were some things about his story line that I wasn’t totally on board with, but January’s story and her character development made up for that so I rounded up to 4.5 stars. It was a great read!