Book notes: People We Meet On Vacation

By Emily Henry.

Recommended from Seattle Times book recommendation.

Poppy and Alex are in an on again, off again relationship for 360 pages. Will they get together?

Poppy is funny, carefree, the life of the party, a world-traveler, works as a travel-blogger, and lives in New York City. Alex is the opposite: cautious, wears khakis, still lives in his hometown of Linfield, Ohio as a school teacher. They meet in college and agree to go on vacation every year, but otherwise stay friends. This goes on for 12 years until a resolution at the end.

By halfway through the book it was pretty obvious: they loved each other but both thought it wouldn’t work because they were so different. I was more exasperated than they were. Make a decision people! Do it or don’t do it. 12 years of this?! 360 pages of this?! Where are your friends to help advise?

The writing style is fun… ideal for a light read. The chapters flash back and forth in time in a way that reminds me of the movie “500 Days of Summer”. Poppy is hilarious. The emotional roller coaster is compelling some of the time. The last 10 pages are touching.

The book name is misleading. Almost all of the vacations are just Poppy and Alex. Sure they have a few brief encounters with random people like anyone does in real life, but they don’t get to know them or anything. How about “Person I meet on vacation”? At the very end of the book Poppy explains in passing that the real thing she likes is the people she meets on vacations, which may be true, but the percentage of the book that interacts with other people on vacation is ~1-2%.

There are better books, though in hindsight I don’t think I’m in either the gender or age demographic of this one. I can’t believe the hold time wait for the library was as long as it was (about 5 weeks), but perhaps that’s the power of best seller lists. I reached a point where I didn’t really care if they got together and skimmed the last 60 pages.