Beach Read by Emily Henry Published by Penguin on May 19, 2020
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Women, Contemporary
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Buy on Amazon | Buy on Barnes and Noble | Buy From a Local Indie
Goodreads
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They're polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Why Did I Read?
It’s about two writers who clash and turn out to be neighbors with the other and make a bet due to their writer blocks. It has such a cute beachy cover and it seemed like the perfect choice for a summery romance!
My Thoughts:
First things first: take those preconceptions of what you think this book will be and toss it out the window! Because I was definitely under the impression this would be a hate to love summer romance featuring two writers struggling to prove the other wrong. And to an extent, yes, that’s what this is! But the bright, cheery romance-y illustrated cover did make me think this would lean more toward rom-com than serious women’s fiction so I did feel a bit like there was a bit of a bait and switch there. However, it’s not like that was a bad thing! I just wanted to point that out so you won’t be going in expecting something different.
January and Augustus are two very different authors – a romance writer and a “serious” literary writer. As both are suffering from writers block, they take on the challenge of writing in the other’s genre to prove that they can. I personally love when characters are also authors because it’s sort of fun to see them talking about writing and publishing, it’s almost a bit Inception-like? Or not, but I always think it’s a fun aspect! Anyway, January is struggling majorly as she can’t seem to write any of her normal happy romance stories as she deals with some serious life altering changes that has happened to her that year. These things are mentioned pretty much right off the bat at the beginning of the book but as it’s not in the synopsis, I won’t mention it in case of minor spoilers. All that to say, those things causing her writer’s block? Are definitely some heavy things to deal with that are very much multi-layered and sets the tone of the book more toward the “serious fic” range of the dial than the “summer beach read romance” end. Which is a little ironic to me given the title.
Anyway, Gus also has things in his past that he is dealing with. Not only that, his childhood and events that essentially make him who he is and why he is the way he is are also pretty heavy. Taking all of that into consideration, you can see why I felt like a bait and switch had happened when I was expecting “rom com”.
The story was very well told though. I loved the characters and really enjoyed seeing January and Gus’ character arcs. It was great to discover how they changed each other over the course of the summer and how they came to fall in love. I really enjoyed January’s inner dialogue too. She felt like a very real, well developed voice and that is definitely one of the best parts of Beach Read, in my opinion.
I think Beach Read is a thought provoking story. It constantly had me thinking how I would grapple with certain events as either January or Gus dealt with one thing or another. The setting was also a very summery locale so I will say if you’re looking for that as a selling point when picking out a summer read, the small town setting here fits the bill.
In Short…
All in all, I liked the story and the characters but it was a lot more serious and sad than I expected. There is great banter and a romance I was rooting for but it really felt less of a romance than a story of two people figuring out their pasts and how to move forward. The romance just happened to well, happen to the two of them while they were figuring things out. The hype for this was huge, by the way, and I’m surprised because I definitely didn’t end up loving it like everyone else. I enjoyed it! But I’m not sure if the discrepancy between what I expected and got is what lowers the rating for me or because I typically don’t enjoy women’s fic as much.
Have you read this one? Did you end up loving it like everyone else? Tell me what you thought!
| Rating Report | |
|---|---|
| Plot |  |
| Characters |  |
| Writing |  |
| Pacing | |
| Overall: | |
I really liked this one. I think I was warned that it wasn’t a romcom so I was prepared for a more serious story. Gus stole my wee heart!
I think I missed that it wasn’t very rom-com-ish. I do agree, I loved Gus. <3