Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

Full Disclosure: I didn’t read the whole book.

It had nothing to do with the writers voice (I actually loved it), but I didn’t realize this was a dual timeline book (jumping from present to past from chapter to chapter). I’m just not a fan of that style. If I’d realized it was going to be like that, I wouldn’t have picked up the book (because I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed it).

As is, the book had one thing working against it already–the friends-to-lovers trope. That’s not my favorite, but I read one recently that didn’t make me crazy, so I thought I’d try it again.

Bad idea.

If the story had been dual timeline OR friends-to-lovers, I probably could have made my way through it. With both, however, I couldn’t do it (not a reflection on the writer–it’s a reflection on what I now realize are very specific fiction preferences).

Overall, I like the characters and how they’re stories were set up, but after about 10-12 chapters I flipped to the back of the book and read the last two chapters and epilogue. I know I missed a lot of the story because of that, but I think I just need to admit that I need to stop trying to read FTL and dual timeline. I think I’d like to try another Emily Henry book, though, because I liked her style.

PG-13/R-rated for language and adult situations. Get your copy here! 

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