People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

I liked the banter and glorious Lake Michigan setting in Beach Read by Emily Henry, but was overall pretty "meh" about it, but when People We Meet on Vacation was available on Libby for me to skip the line and just put in on my Kindle, I went ahead and did so without really having any expectations. 

Alex and Poppy met in college and became friends. They go on amazing vacations together every summer. It's really a case of opposites attract because Poppy lives in New York City and wanders around in her job as a travel writer. Alex lives in their shared hometown back in Ohio and teaches.  She's effervescent and outgoing and he's grumpy and likes to stay home.  But something happened on their last trip and now Poppy has one chance to prove to Alex that their friendship should remain strong.

Interesting characters: I really liked these two. Poppy is glorious in her ridiculousness and Alex in his stuffy ways. I loved that Henry really built in running jokes that people who have been friends for a long time would have. They're normal people with quirks and that's a challenging thing to write. Henry gets a thumbs up from me on that. Much as in Beach Read, their dialogue is absolutely fabulous.

Believable conflict: Oh, sure. I tend to dislike friends-to-lovers because it almost always indicates that people can't have platonic friendships with members of the opposite sex, but here Henry really shows that there was sexual tension from the beginning, but these two ignore it in favor of their friendship. It quite well done. The tension over wanting to remain friends is so key and rings so true that it's hard to find fault with how either of them behave.

Emotional tension: Yes. You just want these two fools to be together. 

Happily ever after: I think these kids will make it. In the end, they're together in New York and I think they'll do just fine.  

Overall, I really liked this book. I have a few quibbles (this isn't Love Lettering, after all). My biggest pet peeve is how the book has flashbacks to previous summer vacations they've taken together and the chronology is challenging. It's not impossible to follow, but Henry's writing isn't quite strong enough to show growth (or non-growth) to show when scenes are early in their relationship versus later. However, overall, I quite enjoyed this romance novel where adults act like adults.  

Quotes I Highlighted:

"I feel insufficient as an adult. I look around at the office and see everyone typing, taking calls, making bookings, editing documents, and I know they're all dealing with at least as much as I am, which only makes me feel worse about hard hard everything feels for me." (page 329)

"To put it lightly, I don't enjoy showering.

Being clean, yes. The act of being in the shower, also yes. But everything about having to brush out my tangled hair beforehand, stepping out onto a ratty bath mat or tile floors, getting dry, combing my hair out again - I hate all of that..." (page 265)