5/5 Stars
Published May 11th, 2021
Published by Berkley Books
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
i have had all of these thoughts written down as a draft since about a year ago to write a review, but i never did. i thought these were too good to not post, so im just gonna compile them into coherent thoughts and share them with you all because i thought they were funny and messy and im sure you can relate to some of them if you've read pwmov. thank you emily henry for my life.
"triggered a literal emotional breakdown because it made me feel soooo many strong emotions and was just so relatable to me in my current state?"
i remember after finishing pwmov i drank like half a bottle of tequila cause it made me feel too much and the pain had to be dulled. emily henry has always been able to rip these emotions out of the darkest crevices of my heart and idk how. i also always feel like her books come out right when i need them most. tltstw came out when i was graduating high school and i needed that story so much. when pwmov came out, i was just accepted into grad school, i was working full-time, trying to juggle so much at once. this story showed me so much about friendship and rekindling ties, patience, fear of taking a chance, etc etc. it was too good. here's the clip from my 1 second everyday on the day i finished pwmov as proof of my distress:
"kinda made me a fan of friends to lovers? are they all like this????"
im telling y'all i was a hater of the friends to lovers trope before pwmov. i always thought it was overrated and unattainable, but this made it seem so authentic and real. what am i doing now if not striving for my own friends to lovers story.
"i think their dynamic of differences is ... perfect ... even if that makes it a little ironic it's like ... that's what makes their friendship sooo strong and even if it was unlikely it just kind of shows you how you can find a home in places you may never expect"
poppy and alex are literally soulmates. finding so much in common with someone despite being so different is so beautiful to me. i will say nothing more on this matter because im right and the quote speaks for itself.
"i loved how this was written aka present to past and in descending order of the past summer vacations. seeing that juxtaposition of where they are currently vs how things were in the previous summers ... it shows how much history is between them and just how strong their relationship is. "
i just want this so bad.
"realizing that you're unhappy is such a huge step and i think that this book does a really good job of portraying that but also humanizing it if that makes sense like . feeling stuck yet fearful of taking the next step is something that is so relatable and emily henry does such a great job at making these feelings known and i formed such a good connection to these characters because of that"
there's so much about emily henry's stories that could serve as advice for the real world. as much as i get lost in these books, which are of course fiction, i can't help but compare her characters' circumstances to my own and gain life lessons from their actions. it feels like emily henry has lived 20 lives and is here to write a story for each of them, baring us her wisdom and giving us reason to keep trying.
"between beach read and pwmov, she's been able to create such fleshed out characters with really elaborate backgrounds that i think encompass ... a diverse set of circumstances such as parent death or strained family relationships, dealing with loss and grief at the same time you're trying to find happiness and i think she just does such a GOOOODDD job at making the balance of these two sides of the spectrum so genuine and earnest and I'm so glad i can sort of see my thoughts portrayed through her words"
like i sort of expressed before, emily henry has a way of creating characters that are so relatable. there's something for each of us to make a connection to. whether this be because we experienced it personally or because we have that ability to empathize with the characters, there's just something in this book that will tug at your heartstrings. pwmov made me feel so much and reflect on everything i had been going through at the time. how is emily henry my therapist???
"emily henry is my favorite author oh god ive loved her since tltstw and she has just evolved into such an amazing writer who can captivate you with the littlest details and descriptions of feelings ... a quote that i fucking loved so much was the airport scene that comparison from the start of the book to the end after everything that happened .. god i felt that shit so hard and it just shows how GOOD emily is>??!?!?!"
to anyone wondering, this was the airport quote: "for the first time in my life, the airport strikes me as the loneliest place in the world. all those people, parting ways, going off in their own directions, crossing paths with hundreds of people but never connecting." it literally made me break out into hives.
if you haven't read people we meet on vacation yet, you should do so immediately. [mic drop]
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