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Bring Your Own...Emily Henry Book | S1Ep8
604 Plays3 years ago
First in our Author Spotlight Series: #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry! While gushing over our favorite novels written by Henry, we also discuss her recent rise in popularity, and how we each came to discover her work. And yes, we're talking all about her latest release Happy Place too!
Spoiler-filled discussion timestamps:
Beach Read: 28:48
People We Meet On Vacation: 48:37
Book Lovers: 1:07:41
Happy Place: 1:21:20
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Transcript
00:00:06
Speaker
Hi,
Introduction and Focus on Emily Henry
00:00:07
Speaker
welcome to Bring Your Own and Catch All bookish most of the time podcast. I'm Brandi. I'm Kendra. I'm Kayla. And today we are all bringing our own Emily Henry books. We're doing our first author spotlight. Yes. And we chose Miss Emily Henry as our first author spotlight. But
Current Reads and Drinks
00:00:29
Speaker
before we jump in and discuss the books that we brought, what are you guys reading? What are you guys drinking?
00:00:35
Speaker
I am drinking an iced coffee homemade so you know it tastes like water but it's pretty good like it's like a good it's good flavored water have you guys seen the the women on tiktok who are making the water like they're adding like syrup and like flavored packets to their water
00:00:54
Speaker
I keep hearing about water TikTok and I am not on it. It's a whole controversy because it's like at some point you guys aren't drinking water like you're using water as like yeah like you're using water as your base to make something but they're like no like make my water and we're like sure okay yeah
00:01:13
Speaker
Interesting. I saw
Flavored Water Controversy
00:01:14
Speaker
Alexandra post that she's like the drama on water talk. I was like, yeah, it's happening. It's becoming a thing. It's like the women who own Stanley cups and then women who turn their water into literally any other drink. It's starting to become a perfect circle. Noted. Yeah. What are you guys? Oh, what am I reading? Yes. Why just finished Turtles All the Way Down by John Green.
00:01:41
Speaker
it was just like on Libby and I was like might as well and they're turning it into a movie it's going to be on HBO Max um and I think it's going to be a really good movie and it follows a girl who has like she's a junior in high school and she has severe anxiety and OCD so it's like her navigating that but like also trying to solve a mystery because this billionaire in her town has like gone missing
00:02:03
Speaker
so they're trying to find him because then she'll get like a big reward like a hundred thousand dollars and that could like help her and her best friend afford college it was so good the anxiety was like too real and i saw a quote from john green that was like this is like the most personal i've ever been because i'm writing about something that has been like affecting me since childhood and you can just tell like i it's so take what like jacob went through and yours truly but like times it
00:02:29
Speaker
It was a lot, but I loved it. And then I just started re-listening to a part of your world by Abby Jimenez with Kayla. It's our little annual buddy re-listen and it's going good so far. I mean, what else can I say about that book at this point? Cute. We are, we are re-listening in preparation because as of the recording date of this episode, yours truly has not, the audio book has not been officially released yet. So we're listening.
00:02:58
Speaker
in preparation for that coming out, so. Yes, only a few more days. And I have, or at least this morning, I decided to switch things up and I went to a different coffee shop today to get myself my ice chai that I love, right? And I'm pretty positive that they gave me a dirty chai. You drank coffee. And I was like, oh God. I drank half of it before I was like, I can't do it anymore.
00:03:28
Speaker
And I was going to have that today, but I was just like, I can't do it. So I just have water today.
Anniversary and Relationship Humor
00:03:33
Speaker
Um, but also before I say anything else, I do want to give a quick little shout out because, uh, today, again, as of the recording date of this episode, it is my, and my husband's fifth year anniversary. We got married five years ago. Happy anniversary.
00:03:53
Speaker
She told me this yesterday and I was like, Kayla, like, if you want to like, you know, we don't have to record on your anniversary. We're literally, we, we like forgot. We like just forgot. And so we're just like, Oh, cause we've just been so busy recently. And so, um, we haven't like had tend to do anything and it's Easter weekend as a, um, so we like have a lot of family in town. So we're going to like spending time with them. So hopefully we can do something next weekend.
00:04:22
Speaker
Um, something like fun. We usually don't do like anything massive anyway. You should just like go out to eat, you know, nothing crazy. Well, you guys aren't like, married for five years. You guys aren't like other couples. You guys are different. I haven't even been married for five years. I know, but it makes me sound like old. But you're only 22.
00:04:42
Speaker
You're right, I'm only 22. I got married when I was 22, which is crazy. I'm like, I'm like, that was so young, but I got married when I was 22. Yeah, crazy. I don't think I even had a credit card when I was 22. I was the dumbest when I was 22. So, but I'm the three best killers. How old are you? I'm the most mature anyways. Brandy, how old are you when you got with Daniel? 21. Wow. I've been together for six years.
00:05:11
Speaker
not married you guys it's pretty much common law marriage i think at this point and since once you hit seven years is it really really yeah if you live together with someone for seven well we'll just pretend you guys been living together the whole time once you live with someone for seven years and you co-habit together it's common law marriage it might depend on the state but that's what i was always told
00:05:32
Speaker
Wow. My little child brides. Happy anniversary, Kayla. What are you reading? Thank you. Thank you. And I am, again, reading or re-listening to Pray Your World. And I'm also reading Coach right now by the way of me, Perry. I'm like halfway in. It's fun. It's a fun one. Yeah. She's getting dirtier with her spice seeds. Kayla, your face, you're like, yeah. Oh, you don't like it?
00:05:58
Speaker
No, I don't not like it. It's just it's fine. I don't have like anything crazy like to say about it. I'm not like this is the best book ever. I'm having a good time and yeah. All right, Brandi, what are you reading and drinking? I am drinking a little caramel latte.
00:06:15
Speaker
that Daniel made for me, which was very nice. What does your mug say? It says coffee. It says wake up and smell the coffee. I bought it from this artist that I was obsessed with during COVID. Obviously a lot of people had to transition their businesses online. I was just like ordering so much shit from her trying to support her. I was obsessed with her and she's just like a normal person.
00:06:38
Speaker
Isn't that weird? Wow, just like us. But yeah, so I have a little caramel latte. And I am I stayed up really late last night reading American Queen by Sarah Savone, which I was telling Kayla about before we started recording. That book is filthy from the start. I'm having so much fun. So I'm excited to keep going. Yeah,
00:07:07
Speaker
I heard there's a lot of pain involved in that series. I always see people crying. Yeah, like it sounds like should be very lighthearted, but so does priest and center insane and those all made me tear up too. So like, you know, like, Oh, you're fucking a priest, but oh, we're also dealing with like a religious trauma and stuff.
00:07:25
Speaker
So this one, yeah, she's in a relationship with the Vice or with the President of the United States and also the Vice President of the United States. Very scandal. Very scandal. I'm like, I'm so excited right now to where I'm at right now. We got kind of her backstory of how she met both of them separately. So I said, keep going. So let's let's jump in. Let's talk about
00:07:54
Speaker
Emily Miss Emily. Yes.
Emily Henry's Literary Journey
00:07:57
Speaker
Today we are doing our Emily episode, which I feel like unless you've been living under a rock, or you're just a random person who stumbled upon this podcast episode, you probably know who Emily Henry is. But if you don't, Emily Henry is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, which a lot of people don't realize that she actually started in the young adult space. So she in her young adult book, she's written
00:08:23
Speaker
Her debut was the love that split the world. She also has when the sky fell on splendor or splendor. I don't know Hello girls, which is a co-write she did which co-writes I play can go like either way because it's like you might love one author you might not like the other And then the only white a book of hers that I've personally read is a million June a million June's which has been described as like baby Beatry but with magical realism I really want you guys to read it cuz it's so good. It's like
00:08:53
Speaker
crazy good. I was this close to reading it. And then I saw a video of Gracie sobbing. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I definitely, uh, it's a journey. Like, it's really good. And I think like, if you've read A Million Junes, like I am convinced that she like wrote A Million Junes and then immediately wrote B Tree, like I feel like they have to coincide because there's just too many like similarities and like the characters are dealing with a lot of similar problems.
00:09:22
Speaker
Um, so those are her young adult novels. And then she made her adult debut with Beat Read in 2020, followed by People with Mune on Vacation, Book Lovers. And, um, by the time this episode comes out, Happy Place will have been out in the world. So she has four adult novels and she seems to be on this, like a book a year cadence right now, which like, we read a lot of indie romances, so we're like a book a year.
00:09:47
Speaker
Write four, right? Like, you know, indie authors, like, they can push out. Like, Devani Perry, someone who we all read, like, then she published like six books a year. She averages six a year. That's insane. But to be in the traditional space and publishing like a book a year, I think is still pretty impressive.
00:10:08
Speaker
And Emily Henry's really having a moment right now. I think all of her adult romances have been optioned for movies. I think People We Made On Vacation is the furthest along in its pre-production process. They have a director. There's rumors of who the cast will be. It's been really interesting to watch. And we're about to spend an hour gushing, or however long, gushing over her work. We've all had some sort of personal connection.
00:10:33
Speaker
pretty sure Emily Henry is how I ended up on Kayla's For You page in the first place. But I like we've been having this conversation recently as I've like watched her like rise of success and though I feel like it is very like well deserved. She's being positioned as like the face of romance which I don't know if I like fully agree with that because if you look at Emily Henry's books
00:10:58
Speaker
They're all about cis, straight, white individuals who are usually slim, able-bodied, people that we've seen represented in media time and time and time again. Whereas there are so many authors, both marginalized and not, who are just constantly writing characters to be both diverse and inclusive. I think a good example is Helen Huang.
00:11:26
Speaker
who has an amazing series with, um, what is that series officially called? Is it called? Yeah. Um, usually all Asian, Asian American characters all have, well, not all, but like a lot of her main characters have some form of autism. That's beautiful. Chloe lease has autism and all her characters will usually have some form of autism or they'll have some sort of, um, disability or impairment. Yeah. Or like Kennedy Ryan, who has, who has probably been in the romance space longer.
00:11:55
Speaker
that Emily Henry is constantly writing black romances and all different types of characters within her book. So while I'm like, yes, Emily Henry, I'm glad that she's having this moment, I really hope that as romance continues to dominate, that other authors also get a piece of the pie and a piece of the marketing budget.
00:12:19
Speaker
I don't know. It's just weird to me. I'm seeing like Emily Henry do like this beautiful photo shoot. And I'm like, I don't know if someone like Abby Jimenez, let's say would like be given that same opportunity. So yeah, I think there's definitely like we've been having this conversation amongst the three of us and with our close bookish friends for a while now. But it's interesting to just how how
00:12:40
Speaker
her fan base talks about her. And we consider ourselves part of her fan base. Like, would you use the same words to talk about other authors that you're using to talk about Emily Henry? Yeah. Yeah. And like, we've checked ourselves. Yeah. And we're like, like, I will call like Emily Henry, like mother. And I'm like, I wouldn't, I've never considered calling Abby Jimenez, who I've like, come to like become a huge fan of.
00:13:03
Speaker
mother. So then I'm like, well, how like, how is Emily Henry only as successful? Because, you know, I mean, let's be honest, she is a, she's an objectively attractive, seemingly straight white woman. So I think it's easy to like position someone like that as the face of something because it's what's weird, like palatable. It's like easy to consume by mass audiences. And I think like, she probably
00:13:27
Speaker
next to Colleen Hoover last year had some of the best-selling romance books and that's kind of hard because Colleen Hoover like if you look at the New York Times bestseller, it's like all Colleen Hoover. So the fact that Emily was able to make it onto that list is incredible.
00:13:43
Speaker
Right. But yeah, I don't know. I just, I want, and this is something I would need to get better at too. And I hope that as we continue this podcast, we'll spotlight so many other authors, especially ones that we just mentioned. So yeah, I don't know. I think it's just a very interesting conversation. I didn't want to do this episode without mentioning that.
00:14:02
Speaker
Cause yeah, I think like a lot of people of color, myself included, um, we love Emily Henry relate to her work so much, but like at the end of the day, like she's only writing like white people doing with the exception of Gus. I will never let that head cannon go. But like, no, like I'm not stupid though. Like I know when I close that book, like he was written to be a white man. Um, so.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a conversation worth having, absolutely. Yeah, and there are just authors who are simply just doing more work and like having more to say too, like touching on social issues and I don't know. So, which is, I'm not saying Emily Henry has to do that at all, but I think when you're going to be like the face of something, I expect you to maybe kind of have something more to say or like maybe be more inclusive because you're taking up the most space in the room at the moment. It's either that or publishing and marketing teams just need to get better at like sharing it.
00:14:55
Speaker
being like, all right, let's divide it up, which doesn't happen, unfortunately. But yeah, but we love Emily Henry still like I didn't I don't want this to seem like Kendra No, like I'm a
00:15:06
Speaker
No, like you said, we're about to spend an hour gushing about her work and how it brought us closer together as friends, all of that stuff. Obviously, she's played a massive role in our journey of reading romance, and especially in the book talk community and stuff like that. But yeah, these are conversations that are very important to be having, especially around, like you said, people who are taking up so much space in any area, right? Yeah. Writers, movies, actors, things like that.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, so fantastic. Also, we will be talking about Happy Plays in this episode towards the end. None of us bought Happy Plays as like our own Emily Henry book. Spoiler alert, it was not our favorite book of hers. And we'll talk about why, but that'll be later. So yeah, if you want to skip ahead, you can. Or if you don't want to hear anything about it, you can just cut it off once we get to the last pick.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah. Before we each talk about our individual Emily books that we've brought, I first just want to ask you guys, like, what was your first encounter with Emily Henry books? Like,
Discovering Emily Henry's Books
00:16:16
Speaker
how did she show up on your radar? How did you start reading her? The very first Emily Henry book that I read was People We Meet on Vacation. And I first read that because I had book of the month at the time. And it was an April pick.
00:16:33
Speaker
in 2021 when the book released and so I picked that because it looked interesting and I ended up getting my box because you know, they released the the picks at the very beginning of the month and it came out like mid April or something like that came out. Oh, did it come out in May? Yeah, it was one of the early really it was one of the early releases. And so
00:16:53
Speaker
So I got it, I read it in April, and I really, really loved it. And so I saw that. And then actually, like Kendra had mentioned a little earlier, that's how I kind of, you know, came across Kendra on my For You page. She was gushing about Emily Henry and how excited she was for people who meet on vacation. And so I like commented on her video and
00:17:14
Speaker
The rest is history. So that's kind of how we came like I came across Kendra. And so yeah, that's the first book that I read of hers. And then obviously after people that I read Beatry. And then I was super excited for book lovers. And yeah, here we are. That's how I that's how I first encountered Emily Henry. Nice. What about you, Brandy?
00:17:38
Speaker
Um, I found people with me on vacation because Kendra's videos about people with me on vacation actually blew up on TikTok. That was, I don't remember if I was already following you or if that was the first video, but very shortly after I started following you, you read people with me on vacation and you were, you loved it. You were talking about it. And, um, so I picked that one up.
00:17:58
Speaker
very shortly after that. And I, at the beginning of getting back into reading, I was listening to a lot of audiobooks, I was reading almost nothing physically. And this was one of those books where I laid on my couch and just stared at my ceiling and listened to this audiobook straight down for like a day. And yeah, so the first thing I read was People of Unification immediately read Beach Read after that. And then yeah, read Book Lovers right when it came out earlier this year. Last year?
00:18:29
Speaker
Yes. All right. I think in terms of school years. Oh, I mean, that's smart. Yeah. Such a teacher. Um, let's see. I came across Emily Henry. Okay. So let me take you back. It's 2017. I'm just now. Well, like, I think, I don't know. I think this is like kind of cool to me. It's probably lame to everyone else. It's 2017. I'm like super depressed in college, like going through a very tough time. I go to the Barnes and Noble.
00:18:58
Speaker
I discovered Katie Katagno, like become completely like immersed in her work. Katie Katagno led me to Jennifer Niven. Jennifer Niven has this book called All the Right Places, one of my favorite books of all time, cannot ever express like what that book did for me, mental health, all that crap. That sounds like so like dismissive. Yeah. And so then I followed, I was so like, I love Jennifer's writing so much and I wanted to keep up with like whenever, whatever she was going to write next. So I followed her on my personal Instagram. So then,
00:19:27
Speaker
we got to fast forward to 2020. And Jennifer, and this is something that Emily Henry does a lot too, where like every time their friends come out with a book, they like take the soap out. Like, my friend has a book out. So it's like, I think Beatrice came out like summer of 2020. Jennifer Niven posted a photo of her being like, Beatrice is out. Like, it's, it's amazing. Like gushing about it, like gushing about Emily Henry. And like a lot of authors say that because they're friends. And so I took note of it then I was like, all right, like,
00:19:52
Speaker
And I just kept seeing it every time I went to Barnes & Noble, and I would go and pick it up in Barnes for all of 2020, pick it up, read the back, and go, I don't know. And at the time, I was only reading YA and starting to transition slowly. So then in December, it was January of Christmas break 2020, 2021. I was at home in Texas, and I got this gift card that was $300.
00:20:22
Speaker
as a present and I was like I'm gonna go buy a lot of books so I went to the Barnes and Noble and I got like they gave me like a basket and I just bought a lot of books and I was like you know what might as well just pick this one up like I'll just see and then I read it in January of 2021 which I think is very fitting uh like to read V3 in January because main character's name is January
00:20:47
Speaker
and the rest is history. And that was like I read this book became obsessed with it and I was like what else has she written? So all she had YA titles where I was like only wanting to read adult at the time I was like oh well people's coming out in a few months and then I just like kept tabs on people and then again here we are. And I have to say that before I read
00:21:05
Speaker
Beatry, the book that I read prior, like right before was The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren. So that was like, I can go more into that later. But I think that's like so funny looking back that like, Unhoneymooners was the pick that I read right before this one. Yeah, like slightly being influenced by book talk at the time before I had even like joined book talk myself. So amazing.
00:21:28
Speaker
Sorry for that long ass, stupid story. That's not stupid. I love that. Like I love how because like so many of the books that I find, I just I'm like, oh, yeah, somebody recommended it to me. So I read it. Yeah, like I love when people find stuff organically. I think that's very. Yeah. And like, I guess like also like the full circleness of that is in Beatry, Emily Henry mentions Katie Katugno. She lists Katie's 99 Days as like a part of the reading list.
00:21:56
Speaker
for like summer-esque vibes. So I just thought that was so cool. Cause if I never had my Katie Katugno, I would have never like came around to it. So.
00:22:04
Speaker
yeah like oh universe working together I don't know yeah cute another question what differentiates Emily Henry from other authors too like when we were talking about picking Emily Henry as our first spotlight author we had a few authors that we were throwing around like because we three obviously share a lot of favorite authors we have very similar tastes um but we landed on Emily Henry because she's
00:22:28
Speaker
for us, we just love her book so much.
What Sets Emily Henry Apart?
00:22:31
Speaker
So what sets Emily Henry's writing or characters or books apart from other romance books for you? Well, I think a thing you hear a lot about Emily Henry's books is that she rides the line between women's fiction and romance, like very, very hard. Like with each book of hers,
00:22:50
Speaker
people are like, well, this was like more women's fiction than it is romance. I would say probably with the exception of people, I think it's more into the romance aspect of it all. And that might only be because she writes simply from one point of view, and each one of her FMCs are going on such a deeply personal journey within their search for love. So I think that's what makes her stand out.
00:23:17
Speaker
little bit more i mean again she's not the only one doing that but at the time i mentioned earlier like unhoneymooners i read that right before so like when i got into btreat i was like oh this just like seems this seems different you read the back of btreat it mentions nothing about the fact that her dad just died and she's like severely grieving like it pains it out to be this like very like fun
00:23:39
Speaker
romantic comedy. And yeah, like I would never put Emily here. I don't know. I guess book lovers is to me a romantic comedy and a little bit of people, but like be treated when people call it a romantic comedy. I'm like, guys, are we okay? Like, what do you consider? Like, what is comedy? Yeah, what's a comedy to you? Let's like define it.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense, especially like I think of like beach read and book lovers and people like similarly to how I think about the simple wild like with the women's fiction romance, you know, the writing that line like you talked about, and the way that the characters that she writes
00:24:25
Speaker
how you can relate them to your life and how they kind of touch you in a certain way. And like Nora, because I have book lovers and like the way that Nora, I relate to Nora in certain ways. I think that she's just able to grab onto that with a lot of her characters that she writes. And a lot of people are able to connect so deeply to like a lot of people connect so deeply to January or to Gus or to Nora. You know what I mean?
00:24:53
Speaker
And so I think that that's a big piece of why she's such a big player for a lot of people. So yeah. Yeah. I think she writes more literary than a lot of other romance authors would. I would make that argument. She relies heavily on literary devices throughout her work.
00:25:17
Speaker
Um, it's not so like straight to the point, like in simple, I don't know if that makes sense, but like for her to be writing from the first person and still be as like literary as she is, I think it's like pretty impressive. Yeah. I, for me, like there's every time I read one of her books, or at least it was my experience with featured people and book lovers, like while I was reading it, like there would just be lines or paragraphs or sections of the book that just felt like punched me in the stomach. Like just.
00:25:46
Speaker
I don't know. She can pack such a punch with her words. And I think that is leaning into what you were saying, Kendra. Like, because she writes so literary and like, I don't know. And what you were saying, Kayla, too. Like, it makes you feel seen, right?
00:26:03
Speaker
I just think that Emily Henry is really good at making really small moments that could pass people by in their day-to-day life feel very, very large in the context of the book. Our friend Sam is obsessed with this one paragraph where it's just about Gus bleeding on a doorframe.
00:26:22
Speaker
I love that. And it's like, oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And like that is just like, it feels so small, right? Like, but it's so huge. And I think there's moments of that in all of her writing. And yeah, that's, that's what sets her apart for me is I feel like I got punched in the stomach. It's like, you know how people will say like, I just could never find the words to like describe X, Y, and Z. I feel like she, she'll find the words, she'll find the metaphor and or the simile and then you'll be like, Oh,
00:26:50
Speaker
That's what I have been feeling my entire life. That's what I've been trying to say, but I just never would have put those words to that feeling. She knows how to string a sentence together. I think about this with Jessa Hastings too, and Emily Henry. I'll read something and I'm like, is that actually how your brain works? Is that what's going on inside of your head? Or do you take an idea and sit and play with it and work it into something that feels like this? Because if that's just how your brain works, it must just be wild to be in there.
00:27:20
Speaker
especially like Jessa Hastings who wrote the Magnolia Park series that we're like obsessed with. I've always said she has something else going on up there because like how she describes love, I'm like, girl, like, are you okay? Like, let's sit down. But it's beautiful, it's heartbreaking.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, some authors, I'm just like, is that what's really, is that what's going on up there? Like, and then I'm like, am I dumb? Like, my brain's just like open door, walk through door. Like, what is happening?
00:27:52
Speaker
open door, walk through door. Go use the bathroom, wipe yourself. My students always joke that I'm an NPC. Every time I walk into a room, they go, hi, and then I have to do it back. Hi.
00:28:10
Speaker
And then Emily Henry will be like walking into the room, something, something, like she'll paint this big metaphor and you'll be like, oh my God, that's literally how I thought about it the entire time. That's how I feel about walking. Exactly. With those questions answered, let's dive into her books and we're going to go in publication order of her new adult
00:28:36
Speaker
novels.
Discussion on 'Beat Read'
00:28:38
Speaker
So, spoiler warning for these books, obviously, if you haven't read certain books, you can skip ahead to the others, etc, etc. We're going to start with Beach Read, which is Kendra's
00:28:51
Speaker
who shocked like any other like book I think the world would like class but it is crazy cuz like I think when I started to like gain a lot of traction on book talk was with people we meet on vacation so like it I love hearing like
00:29:08
Speaker
they'll be like, Oh, like I either read like either or or both because of you and it's interesting to see like which one. So yeah, my pick is Beach Read My Baby. Oh my god, I love this book so so so much. It's just it's just so good. So good. It's so good.
00:29:28
Speaker
So Beach Read follows, this is going to be like a rough summary, Beach Read follows two former college classmates slash rivals turned authors as they agree to spend the summer writing books in the other's preferred genre and they are next door neighbors as this is happening. And it's told from the perspective of January Andrews, who's like 28, 29 at the time.
00:29:54
Speaker
And the book picks up with her having just lost her father like a few months back. And so she's been really like reckoning with that. And because it turned out that her dad had this pretty big affair while he was married to January's mom. And January is a person who has like, she set out
00:30:21
Speaker
She has always planned what her life was going to look like. She keeps telling the story of her life to herself. And so obviously within that story, her parents had this perfect marriage. And when challenges came up, such as if you learned that her mother had cancer twice, they would overcome them. She was meant to be the hero that everything will work out at the end. So then her dad dies. She finds out that her parents essentially lied to her for a big chunk of her life. So she's reckoning with that and realizing that, oh,
00:30:50
Speaker
The story I have been telling myself is just a story and that people are incredibly flawed.
00:30:58
Speaker
And it's just like her journey dealing with that and then falling in love with my baby Gus Everett. And so they're writing in each other's preferred genre. January writes like romance, such women's fiction and Gus writes literary fiction. And I have been like trying to like place like which authors in real life would like they represent for Gus. And it's simply because of like,
00:31:27
Speaker
No, no, no, don't be. Well, I don't know, maybe. For Gus, I view him as like the author of A Little Life because like they write how like... Oh my god. Because, okay, there's a few reasons why. A, he's like always writing about like tragedy and like pain and like, you know, this is the real world, like da, da, da, you know? And there's a moment in like, while in B-Tree, like you get glimpses of like their books that they're writing.
00:31:58
Speaker
And then one of his books he like, or in the book, he's probably writing his care. He kills off his characters and they get hit by a semi truck. And spoiler alert, in a little life, that happens. Like, and it's pretty brutal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's devastating. And I feel like that's the type of book that Gus would write and people would like lose their mind over it. Like he has a lot of critical acclaim.
00:32:24
Speaker
And then for January, I don't know, I have such a hard time. Well, I think she is kind of like a self-insert for Emily Henry. I feel like all her characters to some degree are. But I was like outside of Emily Henry, I feel like January would be like a K.A. Tucker. Like she's has like a pretty nice backlist, but like she's not like the top.
00:32:45
Speaker
romance author like she's actually pretty like she's kind of struggling and she talks about like the money that like she makes off of her advances and like trying to like make that stretch and I'm not saying Kay Tucker's like a struggling author I just think like how she is like viewed and like the connections that she has with her readers and that she talks about that's how I would place her and someone's probably listening like Kendra you are so fucking stupid no um
00:33:09
Speaker
Um, so a big reason why I love beetroot so much is it really has to do with like, when I read it, I just read it at like the right time in my life. And, um, I wonder if that happens for people. Like, is it because I read it at the right time or was it because it was my first? I don't know. I'm going to lean more towards that. I read it at the right time because I started this book in Texas. I was like dealing with this, like really in hindsight, shitty guy.
00:33:39
Speaker
And we had like, this is like a situation, I hate this word, situationship that had like expanded years at this point. We had like, I've known this kid since like elementary school, but it was just like not healthy in any way. And I think it was like just depleting me of all like self worth and like self esteem and just like making me like, looks just so like down on myself. So I'm like going through that. I'm in Texas. I read like the first half of each read. I have to drive all the way back.
00:34:06
Speaker
to california so i have to put a pause into beat read and i think it's just something happened like with that guy and i was like so like what am i doing and then i get home uh i like sleep off the trip immediately the next day wake up read all of beat read and i was like i have never been in love before right but i know what love isn't because of the books that i read where i see other characters and them describing the love that they feel and i was like look at what january and gus just went through
00:34:37
Speaker
And like how they kept showing up for each other and they didn't give up on each other. And like, it was, it was just so beautiful. And I was like, that's, I might not get that, but I don't deserve what I'm getting currently.
00:34:51
Speaker
so I need to like make some some changes and I did and I blocked his number and yeah. It's so meaningful when like the stuff in books can mirror what's going on in your real life and like yeah and like this was like pre-me like making videos on book talk or anything so like I think that's like another reason why it's just like so special because like at the time like it was an isolation and the only opinion about this book that I had was my own and I and
00:35:20
Speaker
Again, I had just read The Unhoney Mooters before this, so I was really blown away, because I thought I went into this book thinking that it was just going to be a happy-go-lucky time, and that I was just completely, like, my shit was, like, rocked. This book is, like, very painful at times. January's journey is so... I get, like, thrown off, and we talked about this previously, in an episode when people say that this book is, like, grumpy sunshine, because, like, yes, like, Gus is, like, a pretty, like, he's a pretty
00:35:49
Speaker
grumpy guy but like I would never like I feel like that term can sometimes be can hinder characters and like puts them in a box like they don't believe the belonging because like I would never if someone were to ask me like to describe Gus I don't think grumpy would be like the first word that would come to mind for me because he's just so much more than that and so and with January like she's not a sunshine character she's ex-sunshine because she's just like having this huge reckoning in her life and she's like pretty down in the dumps
00:36:19
Speaker
But I knew this book was going to have a pretty big impact from the first sentence because January opens up the book and she's like, I have a fatal flaw. And in the copy that I have now, this is the second copy that I annotated. I was trying to reread it as if I was reading it the first time. So I wrote down questions I remember myself asking while reading.
00:36:40
Speaker
And when she says, like, I have a fatal flaw, I was like, what is my fatal flaw? You turn the fucking page, she lists my fatal flaw. She's like, or maybe you're like me, you're a hopeless romantic. I was like, bitch, shut the fuck up. Like- Stop. No, like dead ass. And like this whole thing about how she like tells herself like the story of her life, like she romanticizes everything. I struggle with that.
00:37:06
Speaker
like to a fault like I do it too much where like it is painful like I it's it's I end up getting hurt more when like the story I tell myself does not come true and I think my best friend Madison can tell you like yeah if Kendra will tell you everything that she wants to happen and then if it doesn't go the way she wants it to like big or small like I can't function sometimes
00:37:27
Speaker
And then I also really loved which is an aspect of the book that I don't think it's talked about a lot is January has a best friend called shoddy or I don't I think that's how you pronounce your name is it shoddy I think so we'll just say it's that for the sake of this conversation they do this thing that you've learned about early on where they they give the guys that they have hooked up with nicknames and
00:37:50
Speaker
And at the time, again, like going back to like Emily Henry, like describes things, like makes little things big. That to me was a little thing being turned big. So I was like, wait, me and my best friend do that all the time. Guys, I have a whole, not a whole roster, but like I have a roster of like just funny nicknames to like remember. And I just thought that was like, it was just so relatable. I've heard a few, I've heard a few. Yeah, they're, they're funny.
00:38:17
Speaker
uh oh my gosh now i'm thinking of somebody i won't say them so yeah i really love january's friendship with shawty i love platonic relationships in books that's not new here so i thought they had a really good one and also like you're seeing january fall in love the same time her best friend is falling in love even though we're not like with the best friend it's like just them talking on the phone and i'm like this is how i communicate with my best friend too right like it's just it's just so good and then obviously like we meet gus and i could just spend forever talking about him and like i i struggle to talk about him i feel like because i just will never
00:38:47
Speaker
anything I say I like will not be enough. Yeah, but I will say the thing that I think about the most in this book so Gus is like a very we meet him like so January we established that January writes romance women's fiction Gus writes literary fiction and so he has this thing where he's like you know we don't get happy endings January like he the reckoning that January is coming into Gus is already like he seems like it appears when you first meet him that he's known this all along right like
00:39:17
Speaker
like, like, life just is not going to work out, right? Yeah, oh my god. So you like he is like just that guy. So I thought, you know, that's going to be his thing the whole time. And the thing that I look forward to the most when people tell me that they're going to read this book is when they get to the part of you find out that Gus has been married,
00:39:43
Speaker
That's the part I think about the most. It's part I'm most excited for because it made him a completely different character in my mind. And I'm just obsessed with the way that Emily Henry reveals information. And I think she does it. My favorite time she does is in this book and in People We Need On Vacation.
00:40:05
Speaker
But once I found out he was married, yeah, you go back. And I think he jokes about having already have owned a tux. And you're like, OK, it's probably for whatever. But then you find out he's been married. And it's like, oh, it was probably the tux for his wedding. And you find out he was married, got divorced, his ex-wife cheated on him. So you have this guy who you're like, oh, he doesn't believe in love. But no, he did believe in it. And he tried. And it didn't work out. And the saddest part is that he was begging her to take him back.
00:40:34
Speaker
was like willing to work through like this man was cheated on and it was just rough and i was thinking about this before we started this episode uh one thing that we love about emily henry's books especially the first three is that all of her character all of her love interests feel like soul mates all of her couples harry and when we'll get there um they feel they feel like soul mates and i felt that with january and gusts
00:41:01
Speaker
But then I'm like, you know what's crazy? January, who is also just now getting out of a relationship as well in this book, her boyfriend broke up with her in a hot tub, which I think is just like kind of funny, but like also really fucked up. And she was like, again, like with this guy, like painted out their whole life. And then he turned out not to be like who she thought he was going to be in her life. But I'm like, if he never broke up with her, she would have stayed. She would lie to herself the entire time would have been like, this is a life that I'm supposed to be living.
00:41:30
Speaker
yeah we're going through something hard but like we'll get through it and I'm like same with Gus if his wife would have taken him back I don't think he would have ever trusted her again but he would have been like you know this is someone finally picking me and that's his whole thing is that like no one no one chose him and then January uh January finally did yeah and a big part of this book is January dealing with her the loss of her dad and finding out that he had this big affair
00:41:58
Speaker
And a quote that I really love from this book that again made Emily Henry's writing send out so much is January is like attempting to write her novel for the summer. And she goes, the first time she met the love of her father's life was at his funeral. That is just like such a God tier line. And in this book, January, she gets like letters that her father wrote to her and is like explaining pretty much like everything he did and how remorseful he is.
00:42:28
Speaker
If you've read A Million Junes, which not you guys obviously one day, but people listening, if you've read A Million Junes, the letters in that book play a really big, a really big role.
00:42:40
Speaker
So the letters in this book I think are also another one of my favorite parts because they're just so good. I'm so in love with the idea of like idolizing and loving somebody your entire life and then after they pass away dealing with the fact that they weren't who you thought they were because for so long we can like
00:42:59
Speaker
I don't know, especially when somebody's passed away, we only really talk about the good parts of them, right? Yeah. So that exploration in Beat Read was so special to me of being like, you still love your dad. Obviously, all the great parts of your dad, you're still in love with those parts. But also having to reconnect with like, he's not invaluable. Yeah.
00:43:23
Speaker
And like, I like January, I'm a huge daddy's girl. Like, I love my dad so much. I think he's like the best dad ever. But even like just getting older, I've learned things. And I'm like, wait, what? You did what? Like, yeah, and you're like, like, huh? And luckily, like, I'm like January, like, if I do have a question about it, I can like ask him and like, hopefully get answers. But like, I am a little worried of like, you know, when that, God forbid that time comes.
00:43:50
Speaker
like I don't know what I'm gonna find out um hopefully it's not you know that he had an affair and like had a whole house with his mistress that he left for me um so yeah uh again I don't want to take up too too much time with this because we have to get to the other picks but I love beetroot I can talk about it forever I have talked about it with
00:44:13
Speaker
So many people have so many of, just so many favorite parts. It's just a beautiful romance. January and Gus, like they, watching them fall in love is beautiful. Finding out that Gus has kind of been obsessed with her for years, has been keeping tabs on her for years. Like I love, I love that too, because I think we, I mean, I don't know about y'all, but I have a person from college. Like it's not even like a romantic thing. It's just like, there's a person from college who I'm always like keeping tabs on. Yeah. Cause I'm like,
00:44:42
Speaker
How are they doing compared to how I'm doing? And obviously for January and Gus, it led to them falling in love, so. Before we move on, I want you to flip to a random tab in your book. Tell us what the tab is and tell us why you tapped it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, you just like, yeah. Don't look. So just random tab. What do we got? What do we, what do we got?
00:45:13
Speaker
It's it's the the quote that we mentioned earlier that our friend Sam is obsessed with. Oh, perfect. Oh, perfect. It's so good. She goes, Now I wondered if he was simply tired if life had beaten him into a permanent slouch, folded him over himself so no one could get at that soft center, the kid who dreamed of running away on trains and living in the branches of a redwood.
00:45:38
Speaker
And then they had this little flirty banter afterwards where he's like, it's good to see you. And she's like, you already said that. And he's like, yeah, I did. But what's so funny is that next to that, the original quote that I read, I wrote seven Taylor Swift. Yeah, though. Because Gus had such a hard relationship with his family growing up. And he just wanted someone to choose. He just wanted.
00:46:08
Speaker
love. And he finally got it. He finally fucking got it. They're having a baby. They're having a baby. And also like, I think it's pretty obvious that January and Gus like are her favorite couple. Like hands, they get mentioned in every book, somehow, some way, like sometimes I'll be looking for like, reading. Happy place, especially I was like, you know, like, we're four books in, like, I wonder if she's gonna mention like,
00:46:33
Speaker
the others. But January and Gus are also like the easiest because they're the author. So they'll have the most like, yeah, it's just easiest. Oh, like we can be reading a January Andrews book. And it's just, it's so good. Yeah, I love this book so much. If anyone wants to ever talk about it, you can slide into my DMs on Instagram. I shove this book down everyone's throat all the time, but also kind of scary because it's a book where I'm like, I can't hear anything negative about it. Like I think this book is like perfect. Like I wouldn't change a single thing.
00:47:03
Speaker
so yeah also like the chapters have titles i love that it's so it's so good and okay i'll say this and then i'll shut up on my you can find my original goodreads review and i said something like it was so short too it was like i love when a romance novel doesn't feel like a romance novel but it's still so uh quiz essentially a romance novel because i think
00:47:31
Speaker
I don't know. I just that's how this book felt felt to me because also a lot of this book is like Emily Henry exploring romance as a genre because Gus is writing it. And so January is explaining like how certain things work and like these big like moments that people expect or like a happy ever after and then also
00:47:47
Speaker
before you get to like the time jump at the end of this book which i guess could be considered the epilogue January just says you know i'm happy for now so she's like living in the moment which is something she struggled with a lot she would just plan ahead so much and she's happy for now which is so crazy because i just finished a john green book and their whole thing was your uh your now is not your forever so it's interesting to see how people can like contrast the two and how certain people need one or the other um
00:48:13
Speaker
I think I definitely need to embrace the happy for now. Well, I guess it depends on the day. Cause sometimes I get so stuck in a moment where I'm like, I need to get out of it. So, all right. That, that's my pick of the tree. I love it. That was great. Thank you, Kendra. All right. Next up.
Exploring 'People We Meet On Vacation'
00:48:39
Speaker
people we meet on vacation, which as Kendra had mentioned, is the one that's probably closest to the movie coming out. It's furthest along in its pre-production. So that one belongs to Brandy today. Although her favorite is book lovers, which is what I brought today. But yeah, we also love people.
00:49:02
Speaker
I like when we were talking about like, we should bring our favorite Emily Henry books and Kayla and I both said book lovers. I had no issue with being like, oh, I'll bring people like I love this book so fucking much. Like I, I love this book so much. So yes, book lovers is my favorite. But both of these are in my god tier of all time books. So
00:49:22
Speaker
no problem bringing a beach read, or excuse me, people who meet on vacation. People who meet on vacation follows two college best friends they meet at freshman orientation and it follows them over 12 years and it's Poppy Wright and Alex Nielsen. Poppy is very much like wild, carefree, wants to experience the world, wants to like
00:49:48
Speaker
you know, do everything possible that she can do with her life. She wants to live every single moment out loud. And Alex is kind of the opposite in a lot of ways. He's happy with what he has. He just wants to make a good life. He's happy with his quiet life. He's from Ohio.
00:50:04
Speaker
That's such a funny thing in this book to me. That's such a funny part of this to me is how Bobby and Alex, they find out that they're from almost neighboring towns. They went to high schools right next to each other, but they met in Chicago when they were at the University of Chicago. And Alex is just like, yeah, I liked growing up in Linfield. That was a great place to raise a family, blah, blah. And Bobby fucking hated it. And that's just so them. Why is that me with Kayla about Kansas City?
00:50:32
Speaker
I love Kansas City.
00:50:36
Speaker
You've never been there, yeah. At least Poppy can say it with her chest because she lived there, all right? That's all. Soon. That's all. But Poppy and Alex, while they become best friends in college, decide that every summer they're going to take a trip together forever, the two of them, a best friend trip. And it can be big, it can be small. Like one time they just go to Nashville and they drive there. It's only eight hours away. Other times they fly across the world. Like every summer they're going to plan a trip together. They call it the summer trip.
00:51:04
Speaker
And it's told in dual timelines and you get to experience each of their vacations with them, which I like, I love this. I, for me in dual timeline, yeah, dual timeline is so hard for me because I'm really, really impatient as a person and I want to know everything now. And so I really struggled with like mysteries and stuff like that.
00:51:25
Speaker
This one was done so well that it didn't even bother me because I was, we were jumping back and forth and like, of course you want to see them now, but I was so invested in there before that I loved it. So they- Especially because they're like in different locations in every before. It makes it just so much more fun. You know what I mean? Because they're in a new place. About all these different vacations, exactly. Like experiencing new things, meeting new people and people leaving on vacation, huh? Whoa.
00:51:55
Speaker
But yeah, so they had a falling out like two years ago, but Poppy is going, is like determined to rekindle their friendship. So she's going to go with Alex to his brother's wedding in Palm Springs this summer. That's all the present days, like them together in Palm Springs and trying to like rekindle their friendship.
00:52:19
Speaker
Turns out the reason that their friendship fell apart is because Alex confessed his feelings for Poppy. Two years ago, they shared a kiss and then Poppy like tried to play it off as like, haha. Yeah. And like I and so he was really hurt and she freaked out and they just barely talked for two years and watching them rekindle their friendship and present is just like so beautiful because
00:52:45
Speaker
it's almost like the dual timelines are moving at the same pace. We're watching them find each other through these chapters at the same time, which I just like, like find each other in the first place and then find each other again, which I just loved. And the tension in this book is so good, like all these small things that if you're doing it with just a friend, like, yeah, that's just friend behavior, but popping it out aren't just friends. So yeah, I'm a friends to lovers truther. And this book is just like a perfect example of it.
00:53:15
Speaker
It really is. Yeah. So the parts of this book that like I love, I love Poppy. I know she's like kind of hit or miss with a lot of people. I love her too. Yeah. She, my headcanon fan cast for her, which will never happen in the actual movie. I'm aware of this. I'm not delusional, but she's Lawrence Pugh in my head. Um, and Alex is
00:53:38
Speaker
cowheads gawkman which i think is actually going to happen which is incredible i'm really excited yeah guys when i read this book i pictured andy sandberg the entire time that's funny yeah it was because of that movie it was because yeah i was gonna say it's because they're literally in palm springs yeah but like andy like andy like seven years ago get him in that yeah get him in that room right now he would have been in this movie yeah but there's so many small moments of this that i love
00:54:06
Speaker
Um, some of the big ones that say gosh me, Kendra said that she, there's like one part that she's always really excited for people to get to. For me, I wish I had a recording of myself the first time that I read the chapter where Poppy's sick and Alex shows up to her apartment to take care of her.
00:54:25
Speaker
I was clawing at my couch, feral. I loved it so much. The part where she, oh my God, yeah, I don't know, she's sick, she has a fever, she doesn't know what's real and what's not, and he's holding her, and she's like, you were supposed to go, because she's missing one of their vacations, and she told him just to go, and he's like, I would never go without you. The point of these vacations isn't to go to these places, it's to be with you.
00:54:52
Speaker
And he really opens up about the passing of his mom and how that affected him during this time. And I love that chapter so much. And I think the tension in it is just incredible, even though she literally pisses the bed. It's not like- But that's love, right? That's what you're saying, right? Yeah.
00:55:13
Speaker
He didn't even blink at it. He just wanted to be there for her and take care of her. That scene for me is huge. I also think of the scene in Italy a lot when they went on a couple's trip for the first time. Alex brought his girlfriend at the time and she brought her boyfriend at the time. She has a pregnancy scare there and she only tells Alex about it. She doesn't even tell her boyfriend about it.
00:55:41
Speaker
They just like, he's like in fixer mode. He's like, okay, let's go get you tests. They take the test together. It didn't happen. It reminds me so much of that scene from normal people, which I don't think either of you have read normal people. I've watched it. Okay, they're like, not the pregnancy scare portion of it. But when they're in Italy, in normal people as well, it's, it feels so significant because in both of those books, they're there with their couples, that's not each other. And they go through this huge thing. And they just gravitate towards each other.
00:56:11
Speaker
And then Alex is so freaked out about it afterwards that he gets upset to me.
00:56:16
Speaker
Yeah, well, also like that's why I love the vasectomy so much because and I'm also like, I get so annoyed when I see TikToks of people like guys, he got a vasectomy for her. And I'm like, okay, yes. But let's backtrack. His mother died during childbirth. So like, when he sees that Poppy could potentially be pregnant, and he like associates pregnancy with death, like I would be fucking terrified too. He would never want that to happen. And Poppy was terrified. It wasn't like she was like excited. Like, yeah.
00:56:46
Speaker
There's so much more happening there. Alex is just like such a soft, sweet boy and like Poppy is just constantly pushing him out of his comfort zone. And I just, it's like really special to watch. Again, I know we've said this like three times, but she takes really small moments and makes them feel huge. Like them dancing in New Orleans and he picks up beads off the ground and wears them. He showed the titties.
00:57:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But like that moment, like Alex, there's just things that Alex does with Poppy that he would never do with anybody else. And I don't ever want to read it because I don't want to watch him be in love with somebody else. But I just am so curious what he was like in his relationship with Sarah, who's his out and off girlfriend throughout this book. Poppy and her always had a tumultuous relationship because it's clear to everybody besides Poppy that Alex and Poppy are in love.
00:57:37
Speaker
But yeah, it makes me so curious because Alex would never do half the things he does without Poppy. And I think it's really beautiful when you can be with somebody who brings out...
00:57:48
Speaker
not necessarily the best in you, but a part of you that is worth people seeing. Because I think the best of Alex are the parts of him that are really true to him. He is loyal. He's dependable. He is always going to be there. He is steadfast. And I think those parts of Alex are what makes him irreplaceable. But there's also another part of him that's worth seeing and worth being around in that part. He's very funny. Yeah, he's very goofy.
00:58:14
Speaker
Oh my God. And the quote that sticks out to me is when he says, um, do you want to hear something embarrassing? Sometimes I think he's invented me. I don't know, but yeah, I just, I just love this book so much and I love them so much. I think I need to reread now that we're talking about it. I know as you're talking, I'm like, I haven't read that. I haven't read that one in a long time since its publication year. So I think I need to, I need to reread it.
00:58:45
Speaker
I will say I think it's the before Happy Place has come out, I think people was like the least adored or the one that I would see the most like mixed reviews on stars on Goodreads. Yeah, which which I think was I don't know, it's pretty interesting because like I read it, loved it. I thought it was I like read it in a day. I thought it was so good. But then I started to see other people and like
00:59:08
Speaker
I think some people's reasons for like not liking it, it really just comes, it comes down to like personal taste, right? Like they, it's, I don't like French lovers or like how you're mentioning Brandy, like I don't like the past and present. Like some people just can't vibe with that. Some people don't like the buildup of like the kiss, which I personally thought was done really well because that was just like the straw that broke the camel's back. I think what really fractured their relationship was the pregnancy scare.
00:59:36
Speaker
in that couple's trip in Italy. Yeah, I think exactly. It's not like a singular isolated kiss between two true friends or what destroyed their friendship. It's this longing that Alex has felt for literate. He's been in love with Poppy since they met. And he's always prioritized their friendship, as has she. She's been in denial about her feelings. Alex has not. Alex is very aware of what he's feeling.
01:00:00
Speaker
all the time. And that single isolated kiss wasn't what destroyed their friendship for those two years. It was the fact that Alex has been shoving these feelings deep down forever. He finally trusted and felt safe enough to share those with Poppy and felt like it was like, this is the time. And then she was like, haha, I'm drunk. Are you drunk? And he, I just had the page open and I closed it, of course. But
01:00:27
Speaker
Um, he's like, don't touch me right now, Poppy. And she's like, why are you so mad? And he's like, because I meant it. Uh, they're so cute. I, I, when I was reading this book or just like, what I also love about this book is Brandy, you kind of talked about how the timelines are like kind of going at the same pace with like tension building up in the present. I always like loved reading about, I mean,
01:00:50
Speaker
Poppy didn't love it, but when they planned the trip for Palm Springs, she thinks she has everything, figured out what they're gonna do, and everything just goes wrong. Nothing goes right. You know what I mean? There's no AC in their room. It's one bed, right? And it's one metro. We love that.
01:01:10
Speaker
And so like nothing is going right and she's just like freaking out internally because she wants it to go perfectly She wants their friendship to get back on track. You know what I mean? So she's like I this has to be right this has to be perfect and nothing is happening as it should and so that it all kind of comes to the comes to a head in this one scene and I don't know I love I loved that portion the the present chapters where nothing is going as she planned and ends up actually kind of working out and
01:01:38
Speaker
least for a time, least for a time. Another thing in this book that I love building off what Kayla just said is
01:01:45
Speaker
out, like, there's so many inside jokes in this book, and in the present chapter, we watch them become inside jokes in the past chapters, and then in the present chapters, Poppy's trying to reference them with him to be like, haha, remember this, like this joke, and he's pretending, well, we don't think he's pretending because we're Poppy's head, we think that he doesn't remember any of this, and she's just kind of like heartbroken at that, because she's like, oh, these things that meant so much to me, he doesn't remember, and then you find out that he was trying to preserve himself and his own feelings, he remembered everything.
01:02:14
Speaker
who's just pretending that he didn't remember. It's so good. I also really like Poppy's personal journey like in this book that I think gets like the most spotlight post Palm Springs and it's so like it's so sad. She's talking about how she's like living alone and like how hard it is to like take care of yourself when you're like by yourself you have to like
01:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, like do everything and like just have the mental energy to like make yourself food. And I was like, yep.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yep. Like, yeah, I was like, Damn, Emily, like, are you in my studio right now? Get away from me. Yeah, similar to like, what you were saying with January, like going on her own journey to like Poppy is like this book, I think is I would agree with you most centered on the romance of the four books that I've read of hers. But Poppy is also dealing with the fact that she's achieved all of her personal goals. She's living the life she always thought she wanted to live. She's in New York. She's writing full time. She's traveling all over the world. She's getting to do all these amazing things. And it's still
01:03:18
Speaker
not enough like she's not happy and she thinks that her friendship with Alex is the only thing that's missing but she comes to realize throughout this book that it's so much more than that it's realizing that the things that she thought she wanted for her life for so long are necessarily the things that are best for her or what she even really wants she's kind of been like gaslighting herself into being like I'm happy this is good everything's great um it kind of comes crashing down when she and Alex have their present day falling out yeah I
01:03:47
Speaker
I always said that she had a destination, destination syndrome because you even see when she was like a kid, like she just wanted to get out. She always thought, well, like, let me just make it to college. And when I get to college, like everything will be great. But then like college didn't feel right. So then she's like, well, let me just go here and then like, things will be great. And then like, let me just go here. And like, she eventually had to like get out of that. Um, and I think sometimes I find myself doing the same thing because I'm always like, well, if I just like where to get to this point in my life or like have this job or live somewhere else, like then things will make sense. And then like,
01:04:16
Speaker
I get there or I do the thing and I'm like, this fucking sucks. I'm still miserable. So it's not the thing, it's me. She has this line where Poppy said, I fled Ohio, and then I fled the University of Chicago, and then I fled Alex. It was just like all she runs when things don't feel good. And she goes to the next destination, right? She's just running away from everything instead of dealing with what
01:04:44
Speaker
are the things that she needs to change in her life. She's just running from them instead of actually changing them. And I love Poppy. Anybody who calls her annoying, you're calling me annoying. I love Poppy. I think I would relate Poppy and Gus the most to one another.
01:05:00
Speaker
airport epilogue though you guys that's into a fucking brain rot spiral I was like yeah I was so and my copy still am like just so obsessed with like it's the I don't know why but the poppy and Alex cameo in that is what affected me the most like I loved checking in on January and Gus and seeing where they were at and like obviously what you learn at the end of that that they're expecting a baby like I like fucking love that but I
01:05:25
Speaker
when Poppy was singing karaoke in the airport and Alex picked her up and hauled her away laughing at her and then
01:05:33
Speaker
January said those people are madly in love to God aren't like January and Gus playing like siblings are dating which again is yeah it's just so funny like that's something like we all do with our friends it's just so fucking good yeah and so he says siblings and then she goes Gus those people are madly in love
01:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, so I love people when you're on vacation. I just think that these two, like Kendra said, she writes soulmates so well, and these two are soulmates. They're soulmates. They are. Love them forever. Pick a random quote, Brandy, from your tabs, and read it out loud, and while you tapped it. OK. OK. So I flipped open to the chapter where they are in fail, and I
01:06:27
Speaker
love this chapter so much. They were discussing if they even were going to take this trip because Alex has a girlfriend at this time. And so he said, I met you. And honestly, at first, I thought it was an act, the shocking clothes, the shocking jokes. And she's joking around like, whatever do you mean? And then he said on our first drive back to Linfield, you asked me all these questions about what I liked and what I hated. And I don't know. I just kind of felt like you really wanted to know.
01:06:56
Speaker
And Poppy said, of course I did. He said, I know. You asked me who I was and it felt like the answer came out of nowhere. Sometimes it feels like I didn't even exist before that, like you invented me. Oh, yeah. Love it. She said, I'm not smart enough to have invented you. No one's that smart. And then, sorry, this last part. He said, my point is that no one really knew me before you, Poppy. And even if things change between us, you'll never be alone, okay? I'll always love you.
01:07:26
Speaker
Oh, Alex. Cuties. Cuties. Yeah, I have brain rock when it comes to them. I love them so much. All right, Kayla. Okay,
Delving into 'Book Lovers'
01:07:38
Speaker
so I have book lovers, which is my favorite Emily Henry book.
01:07:44
Speaker
And Book Lovers is about Nora, Nora Stevens, who was mentioned on our favorite female character episode. I love her so much. Yeah, so Nora is kind of known for being this like cutthroat literary agent in New York City. She loves her job. I'm like,
01:08:05
Speaker
Poppy, she finds a lot of fulfillment in her job and where she lives. And her little sister, Libby, begs her for a sister's road trip away, and they find themselves in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina, and Libby kind of has this list that she wants Nora to complete while they're there. Things like go on a date with a local
01:08:36
Speaker
What else is in there? I can't even remember. Where flannel. Where flannel. Yeah. It's like silly stuff. Yeah. It's silly stuff. And so she kind of basically like wants them to be like the heroine in their own story, like their own little small town romance story. And so instead of like this cute small town romance that Libby has an idea for, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, who is a book editor.
01:09:05
Speaker
And he's also kind of known for being like cold and cutthroat and like Nora and Charlie didn't have like the best first meeting when they met each other. They're both very similar people. They're like, it's like grumpy grumpy is the trope in this book, which is so fun. And the thing about this book
01:09:27
Speaker
As Emily Henry, I remember when she was doing a lot of like press for this book, she always would talk about how she wanted to kind of turn the small town romance trope like on its head in this book. Like I said, Nora and Charlie both love their lives in New York, they aren't.
01:09:44
Speaker
like small town people. Sunshine Falls isn't a place where they either of them want to end up and what's also interesting is like in Nora's previous relationships that she's had with men they like tend to leave her for the quote unquote typical you know romance small town heroine thing like they leave her for women that aren't like her you know and so she's kind of like a little bit um
01:10:10
Speaker
had, you know, bad experiences with men surrounding that so she's just like not about that you know she doesn't want that. I also love how this story revolves as much around two sisters as it does around the romance.
01:10:27
Speaker
Again, going back to that female character episode, I talked about how I love when, we love when there's great platonic relationships and familial relationships with women in books. And I think that this is easily and obviously her strongest familial relationship in a book that, or at least in her adult novels, I can't speak for her YA novels. But yeah, the relationship with Libby in this book to me is so special.
01:10:57
Speaker
I love the back and forth between them. And of course they love each other, but it was also really great to see kind of the complexity of their relationship because Nora has kind of always been the anchor between the two and Libby's more of like the free spirit, which is kind of a result of how they grew up and how they were raised, like with their mom who initially moved them to New York.
01:11:20
Speaker
because she wanted to be an actress. I believe that was what it was. Their mom loved them, but their upbringing was a little bit
01:11:32
Speaker
you know, tough. And like I said, Nora felt like she had to constantly care for Libby. She always had to be there for her. She always had to fix things, right? She always had to take care of her. And so I liked kind of the complexity of that in this book. And it all kind of comes to a head because Nora is feeling like Libby is keeping things from her. And you eventually find out that the reason for this whole trip is because Libby is going to move.
01:11:59
Speaker
She and her family are planning to move away from New York City and that like affects Nora in such a huge way because she's like
01:12:07
Speaker
She doesn't know what life is like to not care for her sister. She's like, I have this high paying job to be able to take care of you. Like, you know, she's got a baby on the way. I have this, you know, I have this job to be able to help you. And Libby's like, you don't have to do that. Like you really don't have to do that. Like I'm, I'm also my own person and I, you know, we are our own family and we can do that too. And so I think that that was, um,
01:12:34
Speaker
Or what I loved about this book, I think like a massive struggle for Nora is kind of finding the balance of how much to compromise in her life for those that she loves. And now I'm kind of moving to Charlie.
01:12:49
Speaker
I'd also just want to say that Nora and Charlie are easily Emily Henry's most horny book characters.
01:13:08
Speaker
Like normally, like in, you know, quote unquote, average romance books, or at least traditionally published romance books, the tension is building up between the two characters for like, you know, 60 to 70% of the book until they kiss. Whereas this book, they kiss within the first 100 pages. They, in chapter eight, they make out against a door.
01:13:29
Speaker
You know what I mean? In the rain. Yeah, in chapter 15, they go skinny dipping. You know, and Charlie said you should never wear clothes, Nora. Oh! And then in chapter 22, we have the library hookup where they don't fully have sex, but they almost do. But they were about to. Yeah. They were about to. They were about to. They're so hot, dude. They are. They are. I mean, I love, obviously, January guys.
01:14:04
Speaker
I'll give you that. Yeah. Even in that layover epilogue when they're making out in public, they're so horny. They are.
01:14:16
Speaker
They're kind of insane. But also I love the struggle that they have too, because like I said, a lot of Nora's struggle is again finding the balance of how much to compromise for who she loves. And so for Libby, it was the moving away.
01:14:32
Speaker
For Charlie and Nora, Charlie is not able to go back to New York City. He feels like he's stuck in Sunshine Falls because of some family things that have been going on. His dad, who we find out is actually not his biological dad.
01:14:48
Speaker
had a stroke and he can't care for their business that they have in Sunshine Falls. And so he feels like he has to stay there and help their family. And so Nora feels like she can't have what she wants. She can't have her sister and she can't have Charlie if she also wants her life in New York. And so that's like a big struggle for her there.
01:15:09
Speaker
And there's a quote in chapter 20 where Nora talks about essentially like why she loves New York so much. And she says, yes, New York is exhausting. Yes, there are millions of people swimming upstream, but you're also in it together. That's why I put my career first, not because I have no life, but because I can't bear to let the one mom wanted for us to slip away.
01:15:31
Speaker
because I need to know Libby and Brendan and the girls and I will all be okay no matter what because I want to carve out a piece of the city and its magic just for us but carving turns you into a knife cold hard sharp at least on the outside so that's kind of like a piece of why Nora is the way that she is right like people think that she's cold and she's
01:15:53
Speaker
you know, not nice, but she's actually a very selfless person for the people that she loves. And so I love that part. And then the next chapter is like, Charlie really kind of comforting her and opening up and basically just reassuring her that
01:16:12
Speaker
nothing is wrong with you like you are. I would argue that Charlie is the most like stable out of all of the Emily Henry love interest like I was there was never a point where I was like worried about him in any shape, form or fashion.
01:16:32
Speaker
where I was like with Gus, I was worried about Gus the whole time. And with Alex, like Alex, I was also like, what's good, like, you know, like, are you okay? But with Charlie, I was like, he's just like really stable. And I think that's what Nora needed. Yeah, I mean, and that's not to say that that Charlie like, also didn't have a difficult time. It's more that now who he is.
01:16:55
Speaker
I think if we would have seen Charlie as a younger person, we would have seen that mess that we love in all of our movie characters. But yeah, like Kayla said, where he's at now, he's gone through that stuff, he's learned from it.
01:17:11
Speaker
And I know one thing that like both Kayla and I love about this book is Charlie and Nora's Goodbye. And it's in chapter 35. Like Kayla mentioned, like Nora has this life in New York, Charlie has his life in Sunshine Falls, they both feel like they can't really compromise and they're not going to compromise. And there's this beautiful moment
01:17:30
Speaker
where Nora says, a week ago I liked you enough to try to make this work. And then she takes a beat and she's like, but now I think I love you too much to do that. And it's just such a beautiful moment because she's not going to make either of them compromise because she loves him. He doesn't want to do a long distance relationship. He said in the book that that doesn't work for him, drives him crazy. He's tried it before, it doesn't work.
01:17:57
Speaker
And so she's not going to make him do that, even though he would, because he loves her like they're both choosing each other and by choosing each other, they're letting each other go. Yeah, I remember when I got towards the end of book lovers, like
01:18:09
Speaker
I was like, I don't know if they're going to be together. Like, I don't know. I was actually so scared. She like dragged it to the end, but well, I don't know, but like she made you wait till literally the very end, see if they were going to get together.
Subverting Romance Tropes
01:18:21
Speaker
But I thought that it served the story so well, because like Kayla mentioned earlier, like Emily Henry said that she wanted to like turn the small town romance trope on its head. And she really did. Because if this was any other book, and we've all read books like this, right, or
01:18:37
Speaker
Or it would have been Nora would have came to Sunshine Falls. She would have fallen in love with that guy that she like met on that dating website. He would have showed her like, small town living is for you girl, like fuck the city. But I love that Emily Henry was like, no, like there are people that are allowed to like, like the things that they like. Love the chaos. Yeah, like they don't need to find any other deeper meaning of life.
01:19:01
Speaker
outside of the ones they've already discovered elsewhere. So I just love book lovers so much. Yeah, they're the very last chapter when Charlie is able to come back to New York. And he's
01:19:13
Speaker
She's basically like, how are you here? And Charlie tells her that Sally, Clint, and Libby put together this little PowerPoint. And they put together a list of how to reunite soulmates. And he's like, they made some really compelling points. And she says, OK, well, what are the points? And he goes, such as, I'm desperate to see your Peloton in real life. And I need to know if your mattress deserves the hype. And most importantly, I'm so fucking in love with you, Nora.
01:19:44
Speaker
They're just so, I'm like squeezing my book. I love them so much. I love them so much. What cuties. Ah, they're so good. And that book lover is my fave. Okay, Kayla, tab test. Flip open to a random tab and tell us why, what is it? Why'd you tab it? I would love to. But first, Jared. But first, ladies and gentlemen, the leaf blower. Okay.
01:20:14
Speaker
All right, here I go. I'm gonna choose this one. What is this one? Let's see, guys. I have no idea. Okay. Oh, this is like the most random one. They're talking about contracts. And January says a good contract is... January? Did I say January? You did. Okay.
01:20:42
Speaker
Nora and Charlie are talking about contracts. And she says, a good contract is, I think for a moment, adorable. Charlie supplies teasing, no, comely. At bare minimum, I say, charming, sexy as hell. Irresistible. That's what I said. I love them. They are. I love them. Oh my gosh.
Introduction and Critique of 'Happy Place'
01:21:07
Speaker
Love them.
01:21:10
Speaker
So we're gonna very quickly, I shouldn't say quickly, we're gonna try and keep it brief and talk about Happy Place. By the time of the airing of this episode, Happy Place is out in the world, but it is fresh in the world, so we completely understand. If you would like to avoid Happy Place spoilers, duck out now. But we are gonna talk Happy Place for a little bit. Happy Place follows Wynn and Harriet, and similarly to
01:21:36
Speaker
people who meet on vacation, it's a dual timeline. And it's following Harriet as she is going, in present day, she's going to this beach house vacation home with her group of friends that she's been going to this vacation home for like 12, 10 years, I don't know, a long time since college.
01:21:57
Speaker
And they're meeting up for the summer, like they do every summer, but this is the first summer where she and Wynn have broken up. They were in a relationship for eight years, but they broke up and none of their friends know. So in order to not ruin the weekend for everybody, they are pretending that they are still together.
01:22:18
Speaker
So the past is when we see them falling in love for the first time and present as we see them fake dating, second chance kind of deal. Yeah, that's a brief, brief overview. Yeah, and they're like their breakup is
01:22:35
Speaker
quote unquote fresh, because they've only been broken up for five months. Which is interesting for a second chance romance, I will say that. But yeah, what did we initially rate this book when we read it? We all read it as an arc. I rated it 3.75 stars. I initially rated it four, I think. And the more I think about it, I would probably give it like a
01:23:03
Speaker
two and a half, three. I also rated it four. I now have it at a 3.5 on my story graph. Yeah, I need to I need to change it. Guys, listen, Happy Place had everything that makes an Emily Henry novel. Like in all of the books we just mentioned, she always tackles like grief and some like usually some sort of like self journey.
01:23:33
Speaker
whether it be like through mental health or it'll be like through mental health and grief simultaneously. But Happy Place just, it fell extremely flat for me. I think she was trying to do a little bit too much in this book, but there was like not enough execution on anything.
01:23:58
Speaker
It felt like a draft. Yeah. Like I thought she was going to go back and like, Oh, let me, you know, expand on this more, but it didn't.
01:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think the thing for me that I always say when I talk to people who finish this is that Emily Henry writes falling in love so flawlessly, so beautifully, so subtly. But I wonder if Second Chance might not be her forte because we spent almost no time watching Harriet and Wyn fall in love in this. What we did see if they're falling in love felt very, very rushed to me.
01:24:35
Speaker
And you're talking about present day, right? No, I'm sorry. I'm talking about even in past. Even in the past, it felt very rushed to me and felt a little disjointed. And I mean, in present day too, why are you guys falling for each other again? I don't really understand what has changed that. In five months. I think that was the thing where second chance to me, for a good one, it needs to be super angsty. And there needs to have been enough
01:25:04
Speaker
time to pass. You guys have built almost separate lives at this point, but you can't live without each other. And a thing that irks me so much about Happy Plays, and I've heard people tell me different interpretations of this, but I'm taking it how I viewed it at face value, Harriet is asking when are you happy?
01:25:22
Speaker
in like this life that he just like, you know, has spent the past five months living at home, he's like building furniture. Because a big thing that Wynn struggles with in this book is like his own like self worth, like he is very self deprecating, feels like he just isn't worth anything. He feels like he's like kind of the loser in their friend group already, like he's accomplished like the least, especially compared to Harriet, who is a doctor, which is a whole other thing. Yeah, so she's like, are you happy because he's finally doing like something that he feels
01:25:50
Speaker
good about and he's like around his family who he loves so much. And he's like, yeah, I'm like really happy. And I'm like, in a second chance romance, I don't want to hear that you're happy. I want to hear that you're miserable. I think of like Elliott from Love and Other Words. Yeah. 12, 11 years. He like he would if he saw Macy again, he's like, no, I'm not like I like you are the missing piece out of everything.
01:26:13
Speaker
I like stand by my opinion that I think if Wynn and Harriet did not get back together at the end of this book, they both would have led happy fulfilling lives without each other, which I don't want to read about two people who could be in love with other. No, I want to read about soulmates. Seriously, like the whole time I was like, they don't need to I was kind of hoping for them to end the book of being like, you know what, we had this relationship for like however long
01:26:36
Speaker
are people who date for that long all the time and then break up and then you know we got what we needed from each other and then they go on to like find the loves of their their life but yeah like it wasn't that soulmate love that we have gotten from other Emily Henry books and I've seen people and be like well you know when is it meant to be like a book boyfriend or but I'm like what's the point then like
01:26:58
Speaker
this is a this is marketed as like a Rome which is a whole other thing that we could probably spend a whole episode on like how Emily Henry's books are like completely miss marketed at times but I'm like no I think he was meant to be like I want to root for the the hero and the heroine like I want to feel their love and at this time I just didn't it wasn't believable uh disagreeing with you guys on one part I actually really liked the past that was probably my favorite part of I like the past too yeah was the past chapters okay
01:27:27
Speaker
Well, I really liked the past chapter seeing them fall in love. That was probably my favorite part. And the present is what I struggled with. Did you think we got enough of the past, though? That's what I'm saying. I would have liked the past. Oh, no. I definitely think it could have been expanded upon for sure. Yeah, let me clarify that. That was my favorite part of the book, too. I just didn't think we got enough of it. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's fair enough. And I actually really, I don't want to say I really like to win. I like to win more because I
01:27:57
Speaker
I guess I related to what he was going through, like feeling like, you know, your self worth is just, you know, shot. Like I felt that. But like, yeah, with his relationship to when it or excuse me, Harriet in the present, and him being so happy, I'm like, then why are you?
01:28:15
Speaker
Why are we here? So that's what I think I struggled with. And then obviously the ending, which we can touch on later. And you know, this is Emily Henry's first book with like a cast of characters this large that had like, like skin in the game, I guess like they all had like a problem. And I just I the friend group in this book was just a complete like miss for me. I
01:28:42
Speaker
I was reading them as friends and I'm like I don't believe that you guys are best friends and that you've been best friends for like 10 years at this point and you're telling me that this is the first time you guys are fighting? What? An issue in this book is that one of the friends, her name is Cleo, she is hiding her pregnancy and another friend Sabrina
01:29:02
Speaker
Like, no one knows that Cleo was pregnant at the time, but Sabrina's like, you know, like, you guys, you just keep, like, denying my invitation to your house. So Emily Henry builds up this, like, you know, why it's Cleo, like, not inviting Sabrina, like, to her house. Like, I thought it was gonna be this, like, big thing. No, it's that she was, like, hiding baby furniture, and I was like, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
01:29:21
Speaker
you're not gonna tell your best friend that you're pregnant. And it's not like this was an accidental pregnancy or anything like Cleo's a lesbian. So her process to getting pregnant, it was very planned for her between her and her partner. And I'm like, the way that I would tell, my best friend would know the minute I made that decision. I would be showing her the sperm donors. I just did not believe that these people were best friends and that this was the only fight that they had. Same with Harriet and Wynn.
01:29:50
Speaker
you guys have been in a relationship for like eight years and you're telling me that out of all the eight years like this is like the the fracture and like you guys threw it away in like a quote-unquote four minute phone call that we didn't even see yeah which was so annoying that was another part for me that was really a struggle was the phone call because they built it up so much in the present they constantly mentioned a phone call yeah
01:30:15
Speaker
And then when we got to it in the past, it was like, it was like two sentences. It was like two sentences. And I was like, what? Yeah. A lot of, I think sometimes people, when they talk about people, you know, vacation, they're like, their conflict wasn't big enough. We got like a whole chapter dedicated to that conflict in the past. This one was just like so municipal and so anticlimactic that I was just like, okay. And like.
01:30:39
Speaker
I think one of the most frustrating things for me surrounding this too, and like this isn't even really Emily Henry's fault, it's like more so the discourse around this book from early reviews, is that
01:30:50
Speaker
when people are saying, when I say I don't like it, people are telling me I don't get it. I get it so much. I didn't like it. It's really frustrating because I think it's just a reminder that like you don't have to love every single thing that an author writes. Yeah, she can still be your favorite author. But like, guys, it's okay to admit like this one.
01:31:11
Speaker
it's not gonna be a hit for everyone and that doesn't mean they don't get it because then I've seen people be like well maybe you don't get it because it's women's fiction I'm like guys literally all of her books skew women's fiction like what are you talking about yeah or just like the hardcore defense of certain characters like when I'm giving valid criticism of why I didn't like like it's just it's very odd like yeah I think it's yeah like you said it's okay to say if this is your favorite genuinely I absolutely love that yeah I love it yeah
01:31:39
Speaker
Yeah, but like stop telling me that I don't understand it. And that's why I don't like it. Um, another reason why like I struggle with this one and like this is like becoming a personal like ick of mine I've realized in books, especially in contemporary novels. This is Emily Henry's first time writing People of Color in her in this like a large cast. And you look at the cover of Happy Place and you see it's very obvious that like two people on the cover had brown skin. So when the cover first came out, the speculation was that the girl was going to be black.
01:32:09
Speaker
And like, I can assume she's black, because of the context clues, like she has braids, she has brown skin, she like slept in a bonnet. But I don't want to have to assume I want to be
01:32:20
Speaker
told um and then same with laser character named parth in this book i believe that's his name and there's another again brown skin character on the cover so i'm assuming again that parth is also a person of color but parth is so underdeveloped in this book in this like friend group he's just there and like i i was like what like it's so and this again this is not just emily henry it's it is all authors if you're writing a contemporary book
01:32:46
Speaker
just state your character's race and there are authors who do it so well um it's so simple you can be like this is i'll use me as an example this is kendra she's black 24 blah blah blah blah blah blah especially like if this is a friend group of this of this size i'm hoping that like they are just so aware of each other's races and like that yeah that they're talking about being friends for as long as they've been right um and that's like something i've started to like struggle with with emily henry because i don't think that like every author needs to like have a stance on
01:33:14
Speaker
stuff in their work like it's okay to just write about like silly like not silly stuff but like you don't always have to like reference like political stuff or in the news and media but i'm like you guys are this is a multicultural multiracial friend group and it felt just not i don't know i didn't i'm a part of a big multiracial friend like i have my one of my best friends is korean one of my best friends is mexican when i like i have and we're constantly talking about our race and place in the world so i just want to at least like
01:33:43
Speaker
a nod, especially since it's like this was her first time like actually doing it. I want I want intention behind it. That's
Expectations for Emily Henry's Future Works
01:33:51
Speaker
what I want. Yes, absolutely. It's a lot. But also guys, I think the thing that pisses us off so much in this book more so than anything else is Harriet's life and role as a doctor. You know, we've read
01:34:05
Speaker
and have watched plenty of medical media, both fictional and not, you know? As I was reading Happy Place, I was like, Harriet's not giving doctor at all. Like, she's a surgeon. Yeah, you're talking about this girl's a resident? Okay. And then the resolution for her is that, you know, she actually doesn't like being a doctor. My bad, surgeon. And she's gonna leave to go do
01:34:32
Speaker
pottery of all things so then I'm like wait first and so I was like trying to rewind like why does she choose medicine in the first place like why does she stick it out this long there was no there was none of that there and then she just chose pottery so I'm like you should have never picked up a scalpel in the first place girlie if you were able to give it up that easily because you would have she would have gotten like a malpractice suit she would have killed somebody on that table like
01:34:59
Speaker
It's just, I don't know, that to me was just very frustrating, especially because like we talk about like part of your world all the time, part of your world in terms of like occupations between the MMC and FMC are so similar to Happy Place and like their own like
01:35:15
Speaker
journeys within it. And I was expecting Harriet to have a similar journey to Alexis of like, you know what, like, yes, this is something that I was always thought I had to do, but maybe I can do it differently in a way that fits me better. Oh, sorry. No, keep going. I was gonna say my friend, Haley was like, I thought she was going to work at a small practice in Montana when she. Yeah.
01:35:37
Speaker
She's like, I thought that that was going to be the case. I thought she was going to decide she didn't want to do surgery. She didn't want to be in this high pace, scary, intense job, but she still wanted to help people. I think that's the craziest thing is like you're going from saving people's lives to pottery. And she's like, I have all these like student loans. And I will say this, this, I think happy place, like, you know, a lot of
01:36:01
Speaker
happy place to me was like this is the most like privileged like thing that like a person can do to have the opportunity to do is like I'm gonna leave medicine I'm just gonna go do whatever the fuck I want and do pottery which I feel like I would have believed that
01:36:15
Speaker
resolution more if someone in Harriet's life was constantly pushing her to be a doctor. If it was like her family who was like you're gonna go be a doctor and that's what you're gonna do and then yeah and then she chose herself I'd be like you know what girl finally do something for yourself take a few months off but
01:36:31
Speaker
If you look back through Happy Place, no one told Harriet to become a doctor. There was no clarification on that. Yes, her parents wanted her to have a nice paying job and go to college and make something of herself, but it was never like, you're going to go do this, you're going to do that. That's another thing I wish was explored more, Harriet's family. In every Emily Harry book so far in terms of her adult romances, there's always a dead parent.
01:36:54
Speaker
which is like, and she's always exploring grief in some way, but I kind of want her to like write a messy, alive family and a character's relationship with that. And I think Harriet scratched the surface. I loved the little things we got with like her mom and like her sister, but even then her sister, the resolution with her sister was through text message. And I was like, what's going on? Again, we felt like a draft. It felt like too short. I got to the end and I was like, this is it?
01:37:22
Speaker
Like, it didn't leave me with the same feeling I got reading her other three. Her other three, I can't tell you what I would change.
01:37:28
Speaker
in those books, nothing. And this one I'm like, I have a whole list, like who's willing to listen and I can go on and on and on. I just was so disappointed. Am I still going to keep reading her books? Am I going to like bone with the mouth when the next one gets announced? Absolutely. But you know, she's going to continue to grow her backlist. And this is just it's just this is just is what this is what is going to happen as authors continue to grow her their backlist. Like it's like Christina Lauren, their backlist is big, not every
01:37:57
Speaker
Some hits and some misses. And I think, you know, Emily Henry, we are, we got a miss and that's okay. And hopefully then that's a hit, but maybe it won't beat it. But to have three out of four be like spectacular. That's still really impressive. Um, I don't, I haven't seen a singular non Emily Henry stand say they loved happy place.
01:38:17
Speaker
Like every person I've seen say they love happy place is like a self-identified Emily stan. So I'm really, really excited for this to hit shelves. I want to hear from the people who aren't like diehard Emily Henry stans. Yeah. Well, I think I was like one for sure. And then we've been having hobbies. And I think we can still say war. Yeah. Like that's not a public circle. Not every Emily Henry stan loved happy place, but every person who loved happy place is an Emily Henry stan. Isn't Emily Henry stan? That's yeah, that's it.
01:38:45
Speaker
That's why I made a TikTok and I was like, here am I? No jump scares when this book comes out because I won't have anything nice to say about it. And with book lovers and people, I couldn't shut up. I was so annoying. But with this one, it's like, I didn't like it, you guys. And the more I think about it, the more I don't like it. And we've said constantly that if this book was written by anybody else,
01:39:05
Speaker
we would have been like, you know what? Solid. Solid. Like I would read anything else that author put out, but it was Emily Henry. And going back to what we said in the beginning, like she's taking up a lot of space right now within the romance genre, and she has set her bar incredibly high.
01:39:21
Speaker
And I think it's so, and if she's gonna set her bar that high that I'm gonna, those are my expectations. Yeah. That's where it's going to be so again I hope the next book is fantastic. I would also love to see her just like, explore a little more outside of the themes that she's already
01:39:37
Speaker
constantly explored such as Greaves like I want to read about her writing about something else. I also would love to see her continue to write people who aren't writers but now I'm scared because she wrote Harriet as a doctor and I was like that's not a doctor that's like a kid who played operate that's a kid who played operation like this is not so yeah I because again that there are so many authors who are so good like I think Taylor Jenkins read
01:40:02
Speaker
really good well she's not a romance author but like she's really good at just writing so many different professions and you can tell she researches so so so much another really good researcher i think is like sophie lark like she will like research down for her novels um so yeah i just i expect more of emily henry but i'm still gonna be rocking with emily henry because again she wrote three of my favorite books of all time so like or four if i count a million junes so
01:40:30
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll talk more maybe about Happy Place down the line. We can't wait to hear your thoughts about it. If you disagree with us, we'd love to hear about it. Yeah, like let us know in the comments. We are at bringing your own pod on Instagram. You can find all of our personal bookstagrams on that page as well. And yeah, so we love Emily Henry. We will remain fans. Please don't take this last little bit
01:40:57
Speaker
without realizing that we spent an hour and a half talking about how much we love her. Yeah. That was our first author spotlight. So much fun. And we hope to do many more featuring more of our favorite authors and their books. We love them so much. And this was so fun, guys. And if you've made it this far, you are a trooper. So thank you. You are. We love you.