No. 18: A book everyone is talking about
People we meet on vacation / Emily Henry
I’ve got my party hat and my glitter shoes on in celebration. It just happens to be that those are acceptable wear on New Year’s Eve, but it’s purely to celebrate that the last item of Reading Challenge 2024 has been checked!
I made it just in time by finishing this one last night. Cutting it close is how I roll; I’m terrible with deadlines because I get distracted, in this case by all the other books I’ve got lying around, Christmas songs that required singing along to, and sappy Christmas movies that needed to be watched.
Onto the last item of the challenge!
Books by this author are hard to ignore and the online world is filled with fans. I’ve also heard people talk in the real world about Beach Read especially, but because that one wasn’t available in the library and had a waiting list, I picked up People We Meet on Vacation instead.
This book features total opposites Poppy and Alex. They met during introduction week in college, then never again until the summer break when Poppy needed a ride home and a friend set up a rideshare for her with Alex, who lives one tiny town over in Ohio. Alex doesn’t like to listen to the radio, Poppy has special travel playlists. Alex is a nervous driver but Poppy does her best to distract him.
The long drive sees them bond for life and the book chapters jump through time, going from the now, to twelve years ago, to eight years ago, back to the now, then back in time again.
Ever since that first road trip together, they have spent one week during summer together. During the twelve years their destinations have gotten more luxurious with thanks to Poppy’s job at a travel lifestyle publisher. Poppy lives a glam high-flying life in New York, travelling all over the world for work. Alex lives in his old home town where he works as a teacher at a public school.
He craves comfort and routine. She craves excitement and adventure. He brings a book to a bar (heck yes) and while he reads, she flirts with bartenders. He is the grounded one while she is all over the place. Then two years ago Something Happened (guess what?) that made things Super Awkward between them and they’ve not spoken since.
But now Poppy is feeling stuck in a rut at work and after accidentally sending a text message to Alex, they are back to texting. Not just that, but within a day they have set up a new trip together.
This felt so weird and sudden. Things were so bad between them that they didn’t talk things out and left it untouched for two years and now they’re going on a trip again without discussing anything beforehand? How did they think it would go? And it’s not just any trip: Poppy basically invited herself on Alex’ trip to Palm Springs where he is attending his brother’s wedding. I wish I could say things got heated for other reasons but it’s mostly just because they’re travelling to the desert in the middle of summer.
At no point in the story did I feel the tension that would make the friends-to-lovers trope believable; I only believed Poppy and Alex as friends. I think the ending would have been so much better with them deciding to stay friends. And why would that not be the perfect ending? Friends are so valuable to have in your life, and it would have made the book stand out way more than it does now. Now, it’s a typical fluffy comfort read that I won’t remember having read a year from now, and it could have been something that carried a little bit more weight. It might not be fair to judge an author by one book, but this one didn’t do anything to make me understand the hype. It was okay, but not a standout.
And so comes an end to the Reading Challenge and the Year 2024.
It’s been a wild and wonderful ride and I can’t wait to start all over again in 2025.
Wishing you all a sparkling start of the New Year and many, many, books to look forward to!
Bookworm in the City 