Review: You and Me on Vacation

• Title: You and Me on Vacation / People We Meet on Vacation

• Author: Emily Henry

• Series: N/A

• Genre: Adult Romance / Contemporary Romance

• Rating: ☆☆☆☆

“But most of use are too scared to even ask what we want, in case we can’t have it.”

This book is something unique. It’s hilarious and heartwarming, frustrating and quite painful. You and Me on Vacation takes you on quite the journey. To be honest, I didn’t think much of this book at first. The first 180 pages had me confused about why both Poppy and Alex had gone two years not talking when they could (to a point) fall back into their friendship, and I was frustrated by their stepping around their feelings for each other. However, their obvious connection and excellent banter kept me turning the pages, and I’m so glad I stuck at it. I’ve not laugh at a book as much as I did and honestly, this has some of the best banter I’ve read. If I were to look at this just from the romance side of things, though, it’s nothing outstanding. Friends to lovers is one of my favourite tropes to read, but this was just a really long time coming into that romance, and whilst I did enjoy the physical aspects of their relationship finally stepping into that zone, it didn’t hold any major revelations or life-changing moments that made me go “YES! THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS!” However, the angst and the pain both Alex and Poppy felt over their twelve-year friendship is what sucked me in, chewed me up and spit me out ugly crying late into the evening. This isn’t a story completely about two friends who fell in love. This is about two people absolutely petrified to accept they’re in love with the other and nothing, or no one else could come close. The emotions, the fear, the loneliness, the growth… it truly impacted me. As someone who has experienced what both of them had in ways of hesitancy and fear to reach out for what they truly wanted, I found a few moments so jarring that I sat there after reading this, thinking about what I did in those moments too. It was thought-provoking, and I really enjoyed that about this book. The reason I didn’t give this 5 stars is that I didn’t think the reason they stopped talking two years before the present setting to be major enough to cut off communication for that long. It was too anticlimactic after Poppy and Alex had built it up into this huge thing. I also found some of their getting together to be a bit hastily done, especially when the well-established connection between Poppy and Alex was so stellar. It felt a little lacklustre to me.