Book of the Month came through again with one of my May add-on picks: a swoon worthy romcom. My first Emily Henry read, I can honestly say Beach Read lived up to its hype and was the perfect summer read.

Emily Henry lives in Cincinatti, and as a fellow Ohioan (albeit the other side of the state), I knew I had to dive into her books. She’s published a few romcoms and YA novels that have been featured in Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, and more.

Beach Read is about January Andrews, a romance novelist, who is in a complete writers’ block after her dad died and his affair was revealed, leaving her world and belief in happily ever afters spiraling upside down. She goes to his beach house on Lake Michigan for the summer, intent on writing something as well as selling the house. Only she wasn’t expecting her next door neighbot to be her college rival and literary fiction writer, Augustus Everett. When they challenge each other to write in the opposite genre–January having to go dark and Gus searching for a happy ending–both their competition and their interactions heat up.

I LOVED this book. I absolutely devoured it. It was the perfect amount of cute romance and dose of reality intermixed. It was exactly what I needed.


For one, I loved the banter between Gus and January. I think that is one of the number one things I value in a story–good banter between the characters. Maybe I’m too easy to please, I don’t know, but these two had great sizzling comebacks and constantly made each other laugh.

I also love their bet, and the way they had to help each other “research” for their projects, which clearly came to be an excuse just to be with each other. And their love was such a slow burn that it constantly made my heart flip. I love a good slow burn. With the burn, there was also the perfect amount of spice for me–which is to say minimal. I don’t like full on spice, but I appreciate a cheeky few scenes that leave me wanting.

My only critique of this book really is the meet-cute….which wasn’t very meet-cute, but I suppose that was the point. This romance was all about how the classic romance tropes like happily ever afters don’t exist in real life, but happy-for-nows and falling in love is still worth it.

Overall, I give this book five stars. It had me swooning as well as pushed me to work harder on my own writing, as it’s my dream to be a published author myself. Someday…