Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They’re polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
- Title: Beach Read
- Author: Emily Henry
- Publisher: Berkley
- Genre: Contemporary Romance
- Targeted Age Range: Adult
- Content Warnings: mentions of past abuse, mentions of breast cancer and chemo, adultery, death of a parent, emetophobia, mentions of a cult, grief
- Rating: ★★★★★
If you’ve been around for a while, you know that I love Emily Henry’s Beach Read. Early in quarantine, I joined an online book club of sorts, and the reading prompt for June 2020 was to read a beach read. I’d googled “beach read” and tried to scroll through different ones until one caught my eye, but ultimately kept going back to the beach read aptly titled Beach Read. I’ve reread it many times since then, especially turning to it while I was in the deepest pits of grief and depression, and recently picked it back up for a reread. It’s been really lovely to revisit it with a different lens, and with some more time and healing.
Beach Read follows two writers, January Andrews and Gus Everett, who are both suffering from writer’s block. After January’s father passes away unexpectedly, she moves into her father’s secret second home — a beach house in North Bear Shores, Michigan — only to find that her next door neighbor is none other than her college rival, Gus Everett. Where January’s struggling to write her next romance novel, Gus is struggling to work on the next Great-American novel. Before they know it, the two of them have made a deal: Gus has to write a book with a happy ending, and in turn, January’s next novel will be literary fiction. They’ll even sweeten the deal: Gus will throw in some lessons on his writing process, whereas January will take Gus on dates worthy of any romantic comedy.
I’ve been making my way through Emily Henry’s young adult backlist, and while she’s always had a penchant for writing characters who have been strongly affected by grief in some way and beautifully written love stories, Beach Read is still the book that has captivated my heart and refused to let go of it — Book Lovers is an incredibly close second.
One of my favorite things about Emily Henry novels is her exploration of grief, and while there isn’t one universal experience, I’ve often found myself relating to the way her characters work through their grief. Without getting too deeply personal on the blog, the way January goes from a fairy princess to learning that she doesn’t need to shine for everyone all the time is something that really resonated with me. January Andrews is genuinely one of my favorite protagonists of all time; there’s just something about her and her story that speaks to me.
It’d do Beach Read a disservice to boil it down to tropes (I personally think that books should never solely be marketed on tropes, but that’s another story), but it truly is college rivals to lovers, grumpy and (former) sunshine excellence. January and Gus’ dynamic is one of the best things about this book. I found their banter to be so endearing — and Emily Henry balances the lighthearted moments and heavier ones perfectly. January and Gus’ preferred communication method of using notes — like the You Belong with Me music video — always made me chuckle. Speaking of communication, January and Gus genuinely communicate throughout the entire book, and as someone who hates the miscommunication trope, I can’t even explain how much I loved the way they communicated. There were a couple instances where conversations were put off, but they never miscommunicated, and I loved that.
Something that I really appreciated about Beach Read is how Emily Henry criticizes the way people talk about romance novels. Early on, January says “If you swapped out all my Jessicas for Johns, do you know what you’d get? Fiction. Just fiction. Ready and willing to be read by anyone, but somehow by being a woman who writes about women, I’ve eliminated half the Earth’s population from my potential readers, and you know what? I don’t feel ashamed of that. I feel pissed.” Throughout the book, January mentions how she’s been looked down upon for writing romance, and this reminds me of how we as a society talk about things like reality television. Oftentimes, things that are deemed more girlish — or are created for the female gaze are also deemed less intellectual, such as reality television. While it initially seems like Gus frowns upon romance and January for writing happily ever afters, we soon realize that’s not the case. He has his own reasons for having a hard time believing in them, and is never misogynistic about the romance genre.
January and Gus as a pairing are just so tender and sweet. For as much as Beach Read is a story about romance, it’s also a story about healing and moving on. Gus and January are monumental in that process for each other. There’s nothing I want to see more than both January and Gus being happy, especially after everything they’ve gone through.
Beach Read is one of my favorite books of all time, and I’m so glad I found it when I needed it most. I couldn’t recommend it more highly, but most of you already know that — I just wanted to shout my love for it again on the blog!
Links for Beach Read: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
Lovely review Cossette!