As part of my reading challenge for the year, this book became my first read of 2022. Thank you Sofia for recommending it to me! To any U.S. friends, you may know this book more fondly as ‘People We Meet On Vacation’. I have also heard the ending differs slightly between versions? If anyone can explain why the title was changed, please go ahead and tell me. Very curious to know the reason behind it!
** this review is spoiler free **
The speed at which I devoured this book was unreal. I am so happy this became the first from my reading challenge because it has definitely started on a high. When I read the first few chapters, I did wonder if the non-linear timeline was going to be confusing. Thankfully, everything quickly started making sense!
What I loved about this book…
The structure of this book was actually one of the things I enjoyed the most. We become aware from the very beginning that there is tension between the two characters. Some sort of conflict has driven them apart. Being able to have those little insights to past vacations every other chapter allowed us to be fed little snippets of information. Very slowly we are able to piece together the history of how their love and respect for one another grew, and what was beginning to dismantle this.
It also felt like we had a mystery to uncover. We would flashback to their exciting past trips together and see them enjoying themselves on wild adventures, and then come back to the present day where it just wasn’t like that anymore. So we’re left wondering what went wrong and reading about them in the present day working through these problems to try and understand the root of it all themselves.
I adored Poppy and Alex…
I was honestly rooting for both of these characters to find their happiness. They were two very different people who wanted very different things out of life. Their need to find these things led them down opposite roads, but they would always gravitate back to one another. And whilst they were both seemingly working towards the kind of life they wanted as individuals, you could tell that there was also something missing for both of them.
Both of these characters were very relatable to me personally but for very different reasons. Poppy had a desire to travel, to move to the big city, and to leave her hometown behind. Alex, on the other hand, struggled to let go of his hometown and was happy to settle for a quiet life staying inside and reading his books. Both vibes are very much a mood for me. It’s always frustrating when you don’t like one of the main characters in a book, but this certainly was not a problem here. The characters are written in such a loveable and realistic way and you just want them both to succeed and find joy.
Favourite quotes…
“I don’t think I knew I was lonely until I met you.”
“It hurts to want it all, so many things that can’t coexist within the same life.”
“I’m terrified to run into the people who made me feel like I didn’t matter and for them to decide they were right about me”
“But most of us are too scared to even ask what we want, in case we can’t have it.”
“I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.”
“I’m afraid of loving you for our entire lives, and then having to say goodbye.”
Final thoughts…
Going to make it very clear that, whilst I am a very emotional person, romance novels rarely make me cry. But I am not ashamed to say that by the end of this one I was bawling my eyes out. And when I finished the book, I just kinda sat there trying to process my feelings of this very wholesome conclusion. This was all after asserting that I could never enjoy a friends to lovers romance this much. I have outed myself as a big, fat liar!
‘You And Me On Vacation’ was my first Emily Henry book. I know so many other people read ‘Beach Read’ before picking up this one, but I guess I’m doing things backwards. I can definitely say I will 100% be picking up more books from her in the future. I loved the way she told her story and the way in which she made me love her characters.
On a final note, am I really me if I don’t turn everything into a Spotify playlist? Feel free to check out my playlist with songs inspired by the book below. If you have any suggestions of songs to add, let me know!
Have you read ‘You and Me on Vacation’? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments!