lobster rolls, longing, and a second chance

Every time Emily Henry publishes another book, I smile and sigh contentedly like all is right in the world—because it is. I really think she’s the best romance writer in the game. After Beach Read, I thought, ‘nothing will top this.’ I thought the same after People We Meet on Vacation, then again after Book Lovers. I loved Nora and Charlie so much—I was convinced it was going to take an act of God for me to enjoy an Emily Henry book more than I did Book Lovers.

It didn’t take an act of God. All it took was Wyn Connor. It was tough to admit to myself that Wyn and Charlie were battling it out for first place in my heart. (Laugh all you want, but it’s true!) And if you’re an Emily Henry lover, I already know what you’re thinking—“Wyn and Charlie? Over Gus? But Beach Read was her best book!”

Beach Read is her most popular by far. But my favorite? The nearest and dearest to my heart? Book Lovers and Happy Place are still neck and neck for the top spot.

Happy Place is a second chance romance that feels really and truly authentic. I’ve heard complaints that the pace in this novel was too slow, and I don’t disagree—but that’s what makes Harriet and Wyn’s second chance feel so real. Slow burn makes me impatient, so I get it. Trust me, I was moving through this book as quickly as I could so I would make it to the highly anticipated reunion. And that reunion was so sweet.

It made me giggle that Harriet was a woman in STEM. That felt new for an Emily Henry female lead. And Harriet wasn’t exactly my favorite, but I understood her. I felt for her and Wyn. Their miscommunication was quite literally unmatched. (Even if you don’t like the miscommunication trope, give this one a shot).

Emily Henry handles romance tropes with such talent, they become subtle. They feel more like big picture the way she does them. You know how sometimes, you read a book with tropes in it and it’s like the author laid down a stencil and filled in a story around the tropes? It can be easy to find books like that in the romance section. But not from Emily Henry! She’s a gift to the genre

This book gave me a renewed appreciation for second chances. I’m not one that usually will advocate for that. I’ve been burned by second chances several times over.

Harriet’s journey was kind of annoying to me. She spent so much time early in the book trying to convince herself that she didn’t love Wyn anymore, and I found that so irritating. I almost wished she would have figured out earlier that she wanted him back, making it a little easier for him to love her. We could’ve had so much more lovely romance that way!

But let’s psychoanalyze me about that, right? If you could hear me right now, I’m laughing at myself a little bit. I love second chance romance. You could argue that I crave it. I know I fantasize about it. Still, the thing I will never do is pursue a second chance romance. That would mean is disrupting the boundaries I’ve carefully maintained. I will turn the possibility of that second chance over and over in my mind, but I will never take the first step in that direction. I’ll let the other person take that first step, sure, but my heart is never really in it (no matter how great the fantasy may be).

When Harriet lets her walls come down, she gets a beautiful love story renewed. Of course, by the end of the story, her whole heart was in it. I hate to sound like a pessimist, but I’m not convinced it would work the same way for me.