yadira
emily henry has done it again. after reading PWMOV i was worried that book lovers may have been a one off. however, i might have loved this more than book lovers i fear.
i found this book to be sorta cathartic. it's pretty rare for me to feel personally connected to a main character, let alone feel like they almost mirror me. but harriet truly felt like she was written for me. so much of her inner turmoil was just so heartbreakingly relatable. there were points that i almost forgot that this was meant to be a romance because i got so engrossed in how harriet was feeling (not just regarding her situation with wyn but also regarding her career, her family, and her friends). i think this is definitely a character that will stick with me for a while.
i also really loved the romance. i have always been a sucker for a second chance romance but nothing could have prepared me for the yearning and tension between harriet and wyn. the love that these two have for each-other just felt so palpable. i'm also usually not a fan of the miscommunication trope (the main reason why i didn't really like PWMOV) but i didn't hate it here. i think emily henry did a really good job fleshing out harriet and wyn that i understood why it had to resort to that.
lastly, i also loved the found family trope! as someone who also has a tight knit group of college friends that live all over the country, i felt like i could really connect to their dynamic and that collective fear of the unknown as you get older. the fact none of the friends felt too much like side characters helped too.
overall, i loved this and i'm glad this was my first book of 2024!
i think this book was just not meant for me. i went in very excited because i LOVED book lovers. however, i sort of feel a bit indifferent; i didn't hate it but i also didn't love it.
poppy and alex as characters were ok for the most part. i didn't feel strongly about either of them. at times i really wished we could have seen more of their characters outside the vacation flashbacks; it just felt like we didn't get to really know poppy and alex outside the escapism that their vacations were meant to provide.
ALSO, the reveal at the end about what had happened during their croatia trip was a bit anticlimactic. with the way poppy kept referring to the trip, i was honestly expecting a lot more than we got.
all that aside, the few moments we did get to see of poppy and alex's dynamic were very sweet. ultimately, i think a lot of their problems could have been avoided if they knew how to communicate better.
i do think that of all three of casey mcquiston's books, rwrb is definitely their strongest work. i think overall the main characters were a lot more well fleshed out, making it easier for me to enjoy the book as a whole.
i did have a couple grievances with how alex's latinx heritage was handled. i don't think it was terrible, but i did feel that it was a bit surface level at times. i do wish mcquiston would have delved a bit further into that part of alex's identity.
that being said, i did actually really like alex and henry's relationship. i was bit skeptical at first because i was not expecting them to get together so early on in the book. however, their cute little email exchanges really won me over!
p.s.
i will note that, much like one last stop and i kissed shara wheeler , you do have to suspend your believe a little bit to believe everything that happens. but i promise it makes it a way more enjoyable read if you do!
this is my first emily henry book but it certainly will NOT be my last. nora stephens really stole the show in my opinion. i love how emily henry really gave us a deep dive into nora as a whole person. undertstanding nora's relationship with both her career and her sister really helped ground her character and made all the decisions she makes throughout the course of the book much more believable.
additionally, the inevitable third act breakup made so much sense for these two characters; i think emily henry did a really good job of making the conflicts between nora and charlie meaningful and realistic. there really was never a point where i felt either was being unreasonable. ultimately, i think that's the reason why this rom com worked for me; nora and charlie felt so real!
p.s. the banter was also chef's kiss
this might be the most disturbing book i have ever read. the graphic descriptions really hit me in a way i was not expecting and i often found myself questioning whether they were necessary. that being said, the brutality of the writing made it almost impossible not to think about the ideas that Bazterrica was trying to convey.
truly horrifying to its core, i never want to think about this book again. though i doubt i'll ever be able to forget it.
i will probably leave this unrated because i genuinely don't think i could ever give it a proper rating.
