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People We Meet on Vacation is a 364-page romance novel by Emily Henry. Alex and Poppy are total opposites, but ever since they shared a car ride home in college, they’ve been the best of friends. Currently they live far apart, Poppy in New York City and Alex in their small hometown, but every summer for the past 10 years, they’ve taken one week of vacation together. That is until two years ago, where everything was ruined and they haven’t spoken since. Poppy has everything going for her, a great job in the city she loves, but she hasn’t been truly happy since that last trip with Alex. She decides to do one last trip to right the wrongs, and miraculously Alex agrees, adding on vacation days to his brother’s destination wedding to spend time with Poppy. She has one week to fix their friendship.
This is the third book of Emily Henry’s I’ve read so far, and I would say I liked it more than Happy Place, but not as much as Beach Read. At first I wasn’t sure how I’d like it as there were a few parts that annoyed me, but it ended up being a pretty cute story.
I don’t really like the friends to lovers trope, but since this was like they hadn’t talked in two years, it seemed less like that trope than other books. I did enjoy their banter a lot throughout the book. Also, there is the one bed trope, which I absolutely love.
It was so obvious that Poppy loved Alex more than friends from the beginning, but she hid it for eight years, which made me pretty mad. I’ve been in friendships where the guy actually likes me the whole time and didn’t say anything until years later, and it does ruin the friendship for me since they weren’t honest from the start. I would understand waiting a year or two to see if it’s a crush that will go away with time, but not eight.
I thought it was wild that they pretend to be married on their annual trips, but then they both deny feeling anything romantically toward each other. I don’t really know of any friends who pretend to be married without at least one of them being interested romantically, but maybe they’re out there.
There were so many moments where it was clear that they’re totally in love with each other and it was frustrating that neither would acknowledge that for so long. Like her reading his short story and feeling like they’re one and the same and she’s finally understood and not ever going to be alone again, to me that’s a deep love. It doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic love, but it was still love. Also, he says she makes him weird, like he’s not weird with anyone else, that’s also love. Being able to be your full weird self with someone is love and they both have that ability in this relationship. They were both too blind or maybe too scared to admit it, but they were in love since the beginning. Plus, even after two years of no contact, he takes her to his brother’s wedding. He has to still like her if he’s doing that. It was just a little frustrating so clearly seeing them in love and them not doing anything about it for so long.
Can we talk about the Croatia trip for a second? When they kept teasing that the trip to Croatia is when something happened and they stopped talking after that, I thought it had to be really bad. I figured it was a huge argument or like they had sex and someone regretted it later, but it was just a kiss when they were drunk. I understand that Poppy took it as rejection from Alex when he said pretend it didn’t happen, but I can’t see that being such a big thing that they just fully stopped talking to each other after an eight-year friendship. I didn’t really find that believable.
Another thing I thought was unbelievable was Poppy’s plan for the day in Palm Springs on the current day trip. It’s the off season, it’s super hot, and she says she has a lot of surprises planned and says a lot will be indoors. First place they go to is the zoo! She wanted him to feed the giraffes since that’s his favorite animal, and they get there early and have until 11:30, but they end up taking too long at the other exhibits and miss it, and Alex almost gets heat stroke. Then the next thing is some giant dinosaur statue that you just go to and look at for maybe five minutes. Sure, there’s a gift shop there, but I wouldn’t really say it was an indoor activity. Those were the only two things she had planned! It was hard to believe that her job is a travel writer since she planned the day so poorly. Then next she finds a botanic garden, which again is not indoors. This whole sequence killed me, it seemed unbelievable and took me out of the story for a bit.
However, I did enjoy the ending where she goes back to New York City to decide what she really wants to do, and she realizes her job is burning her out and not giving her that joy it used to. I’m glad she didn’t just jump into a relationship with Alex right away once they mended their relationship and she really took time to think on it, and I’m glad she started to therapy, too.
Some quotes I enjoyed from the book:
“It hurts to want it all, so many things that can’t coexist in the same life.”
“I know that I wish I could see him every single day, and there’s no part of me that’s imagining what else could be out there, who I might miss out on knowing and loving if we were to really be together”
“Wherever you are, that’s where I belong.”
Overall, it did end up being a cute read, better than Happy Place in my opinion, but not as good as Beach Read. I give People We Meet on Vacation 3 stars.
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Read my other Emily Henry reviews:
Funny Story
Great Big Beautiful Life
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Notes from the Shelf 
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