Beach Read by Emily Henry | Review
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Genre/s: Contemporary, Romance, Adult, Fiction
Publication Date: 18th May 2020 (UK, Kindle), 20th August (UK, paperback), 19th May 2020 (US, paperback)
Published by: Penguin Books (UK), Berkley (US)
Date Read: 16th May 2020
I love the way this was written. It’s witty, romantic and very clever, but also quite dark. Emily Henry delved so much deeper than I was expecting and created an excitingly complex and intriguing set of characters.
“...when the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear. I decided then that my life would be full of all three.”
The direction it went in at times was rather odd, but it still held on to the magic of the relationship between the protagonist and love interest. And the more understated scenes between them ended up being some of my favourites.
“It didn’t take inspiration to dredge up a list of plot points, but to find that moment—the perfect moment that defined a book, that made it come alive as something greater than the sum of its words—that required an alchemy you couldn’t fake.”
Henry somehow kept me enamoured completely in these characters lives. There were some aspects concerning the plot and reveals in terms of the love interest and his past that made me uncomfortable while reading and I felt a sort of dread at what was going to be revealed next even though at the same time I was absolutely loving every second of reading it. It was also very interesting how the author decided to carry some things over into the book the protagonist January is writing from her life and how she used similar plot points in a completely different way, it was so unbelievably clever. I feel as though there are two different ways to read this, you could probably take it all at face value and get a cutesy contemporary, but if you look deeper you’ll uncover so much more.
“Everybody’s got shit, January. Sometimes, thinking about someone else’s is almost a relief.”
Honestly it was a rather weird reading experience for me. I thought I was going into a very light hearted fun read and somehow got that, but at the same time got something completely different as well. Beach Read is a very unique and very interesting book and I can’t recommend it enough.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
TW: Death of a parent, cancer, cheating, grief, alcohol/heavy drinking, vomit (one of the main characters has emetophobia), mention of a cult, mentions of physical and domestic abuse.
Thank you so much to Penguin Books UK for providing an early copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks for reading!
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