Happy Place Book Review

Happy Place by Emily Henry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve heard great things about this book, and I have to say it deserved those praises. While it had a slow start and a slow unraveling of the main plot, once it got going it was hard to put down. I found Harriet to be a great main character, and I loved seeing her relationships with her ex-fiance and friends. The big dilemma of this book is that everyone thinks Harriet and her ex are still together. But, Harriet and Wyn, her ex, decide to tell all of their friends about their breakup at the end of their yearly trip to Maine.

This decision is the driving force behind the whole book. And it’s funny to see how these two exes interact with one another as if they haven’t been apart for the last five months. As we get deeper into the story, we get deeper into the characters and their relationships, which really brings this contemporary romance to another level. There is a lot of humor in this book and fast comebacks that I really loved reading. But, there were also meaningful and deep conversations that made me wish I was vacationing in Maine with all of them. The author did a fantastic job of creating this magical place for her characters. I could tell why it was considered their Happy Place.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I felt I could have enjoyed it a tad more if the timeline shifts flowed a little better. It took me a bit to catch on that Happy Place was usually the past and Real Life the present. I also wish we got a better glimpse of why Harriet and Wyn’s relationship failed earlier in the book. It was rolled out piece by piece and dragged a little bit. But, I did love when the past would connect to the present and vice versa. Unfortunately, the chapters and scenes didn’t always play out like that.

In addition to Harriet and Wyn, there was Cleo and Kimmy and Sabrina and Parth. These were all such great characters, and the only negative was that the story’s main focus was Harriet and Wyn, so we didn’t get to dive as deep into the secondary characters as I wanted. I’d definitely read a book on those other two couples as they all had interesting lives, especially Cleo and Kimmy who had a farm. They all felt like interesting individuals, which shows how the author did an amazing job at creating very rounded out characters. I just wanted more of them!

I highly recommend this book. It was an extremely enjoyable read and a great contemporary romance. The story is fun and the dialogue is fast and witty. I bet you’ll want to travel to Maine or be besties with the characters like I did. I loved this as a first read for my new book club, we picked well!

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