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Happy Place

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Emily Henry

Happy Place Hardcover – April 25, 2023

by Emily Henry (Author)

4.2 54,207 ratings

Editors' pick Best Books of the Year So Far 2023

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INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“The beach-read master hooks us again."—People

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by BuzzFeed ∙ Paste Magazine ∙ Elle ∙ Southern Living ∙ SheReads ∙ Culturess ∙ Medium ∙ Her Campus ∙ Readers Digest ∙ Zibby Mag and more!

A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.

They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Berkley
Publication date

April 25, 2023
Dimensions

6.22 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches
ISBN-10

0593441273
ISBN-13

978-0593441275
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Popular Highlights in this book

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My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing one another so well you don’t need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.
Highlighted by 1,390 Kindle readers
“No,” he says quietly. “In every universe, it’s you for me. Even if it’s not me for you.”
Highlighted by 928 Kindle readers
He’s become my best friend the way the others did: bit by bit, sand passing through an hourglass so slowly, it’s impossible to pin down the moment it happens. When suddenly more of my heart belongs to him than doesn’t, and I know I’ll never get a single grain back. He’s a golden boy. I’m a girl whose life has been drawn in shades of gray. I try not to love him. I really try.
Highlighted by 754 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

There are some places you fall in love with over and over again.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of May 2023: Emily Henry does it again with not only a beautiful, vibrant cover, but an immersive storyline to match. One of the things I love most about Henry’s writing is the sarcastic wit she brings to her characters. There is no shortage of snappy responses and quick-witted one-liners that make these reads so much fun. More than your standard second-chance love romance, Happy Place stands out from Henry’s other novels by not only focusing on the relationship between Harriet and Wyn—the couple who haven’t told their friends about their breakup—but also the dynamic between their close-knit circle of long-time friends. Harriet and Wyn are not the only ones who seem to be holding on to a secret—when the group gathers for their annual vacation, everyone can sense the energy is not quite right. This is more than a rom-com—it is about the beauty, pain, and joy that comes with biological families, chosen families, growing up and apart, and how as adults we handle and deal with this thing called life. —Kami Tei, Amazon Editor

Review

"Henry's new novel is a slow-burn romance and an ode to the chosen family we need when everything gets too complicated...The beach-read master hooks us again."
—People

“Blur[s] the lines between women’s and literary-leaning commercial fiction, departing from the fantasy spaces of bodice rippers and misty moors to depict a world that looks a lot more like, well, our own…Henry operates at the top of her—and her readers’—intelligence, telling sophisticated, heartfelt stories that are conscious of the romantic comedy conventions without being overly meta about them…Henry’s dedicated readers know what to expect: wit, charm and heart, satisfying to the last page.”
—The Washington Post

“With tender insight and quick wit, Henry delivers prosecco and sea breezes alongside startling mediations on friendship, loss, and adulthood.”
—Oprah Quarterly

"Just in time for summer, Henry's latest rom-com is a charming, heartwarming read about second-chance romance."
—USA Today

“Here she is at last, a reigning queen of beach reads…Henry returns with another of her surefire-hit romantic comedies this spring, this one about a forced-proximity fake relationship…Expect to see it on vacationers’ Instagram feeds all summer long, and deservedly so.”
—Elle

“For the last couple of years, Emily Henry has been the queen of romance novels, and that is not changing any time soon.”
—Cosmopolitan

“The queen of beach reads."
—The Hollywood Reporter

"Another knock-out from the champ. The woman doesn't miss."
—Taylor Jenkins-Reid

"Emily Henry has done it again! Happy Place is a dazzling, poignant love story about the people and places our hearts call home. Bursting with warmth and wit, this unforgettable romance is one more reason my happy place is an Emily Henry book."
—Carley Fortune, New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and Meet Me at the Lake

“This has the makings of a rom-com classic.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This sexy and profoundly romantic novel will satisfy fans of best-selling Henry’s thrilling trademark mix of witty banter and intensely emotional storylines.”
—Library Journal(starred review)

“Henry's novels are sparkling bestsellers, and her newest will be an immense draw for her fans and every reader looking for a stellar romance.”
—Booklist (starred review)

"As always, Henry’s dialogue is sparkling and the banter between characters is snappy and hilarious. Wyn and Harriet’s relationship, shown both in the past and the present, feels achingly real. Their breakup, as well as their complicated relationships with their own families, adds a twinge of melancholy, as do the relatable growing pains of a group of friends whose lives are taking them in different directions. A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.”
—Kirkus

“Happy Place proves that Henry is a writer with “no skips,” her oeuvre as expertly crafted as a perfect summer playlist.”
—Bookpage(starred review)

"If you're looking for a magical second-chance romance that will make your heart ache and read compulsively to find out what happened to the perfect couple (and whether they'll get their happily ever after), then Happy Place is sure to keep you up all night!"
—The Nerd Daily

"...no matter how large your TBR list is, Happy Place by Emily Henry needs to be on it."
—The Everygirl

"Alternating between past and present, Henry crafts a tender, bittersweet story about the bonds that help define us and the inevitability of change."
—The Washington Independent Review of Books

About the Author

Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read. She studied creative writing at Hope College, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @emilyhenrywrites.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

Happy Place

Knott's Harbor, Maine

A cottage on the rocky shoreline, with knotty pine floorboards and windows that are nearly always open. The smell of evergreens and brine wafting in on the breeze, and white linen drapes lifting in a lazy dance. The burble of a coffee maker, and that first deep pull of cold ocean air as we step out onto the flagstone patio, steaming mugs in hand.

My friends: willowy, honey-haired Sabrina and wisp of a waif Cleo, with her tiny silver septum piercing and dip-dyed box braids. My two favorite people on the planet since our freshman year at Mattingly College.

It still boggles my mind that we didn't know one another before that, that a stodgy housing committee in Vermont matched the three of us up. The most important friendships in my life all came down to a decision made by strangers, chance. We used to joke that our living arrangement must be some government-funded experiment. On paper, we made no sense.

Sabrina was a born-and-raised Manhattan heiress whose wardrobe was pure Audrey Hepburn and whose bookshelves were stuffed with Stephen King. Cleo was the painter daughter of a semi-famous music producer and an outright famous essayist. She'd grown up in New Orleans and showed up at Mattingly in paint-splattered overalls and vintage Doc Martens.

And me, a girl from southern Indiana, the daughter of a teacher and a dentist's receptionist, at Mattingly because the tiny, prestigious liberal arts school gave me the best financial aid, and that was important for a premed student who planned to spend the next decade in school.

By the end of our first night living together, Sabrina had us lined up on her bed watching Clueless on her laptop and eating a well-balanced mix of popcorn and gummy worms. By the end of the next week, she'd had custom shirts made for us, inspired by our very first inside joke.

Sabrina's read Virgin Who Can't Drive.

Mine read Virgin Who CAN Drive.

And Cleo's read Not a Virgin but Great Driver. We wore them all the time, just never outside the dorm. I loved our musty room in the rambling white-clapboard building. I loved wandering the fields and forest around campus with the two of them, loved that first day of fall when we could do our homework with our windows open, drinking spicy chai or decaf laced with maple syrup and smelling the leaves curling up and dropping from branches. I loved the nude painting of Sabrina and me that Cleo made for her final figure drawing class project, which she'd hung over our door so it was the last thing we saw on our way out to class, and the Polaroids we taped on either side of it, the three of us at parties and picnics and coffee shops in town.

I loved knowing that Cleo had been lost in her work whenever her braids were pulled into her neon-green scrunchie and her clothes smelled like turpentine. I loved how Sabrina's head would tip back on an outright cackle whenever she read something particularly terrifying and she'd kick her Grace Kelly loafers against the foot of her bed. I loved poring over my biology textbooks, running out of highlighter as I went because everything seemed so important, breaking to clean the room top to bottom whenever I got stuck on an assignment.

Eventually, the silence would always crack, and we'd end up giggling giddily over texts from Cleo's prospective new girlfriend, or outright shrieking as we hid behind our fingers from the slasher movie Sabrina had put on. We were loud. I'd never been loud before. I grew up in a quiet house, where shouting only ever happened when my sister came home with a questionable new piercing or a new love interest or both. The shouting always gave way to an even deeper silence after, and so I did my best to head the shouting off at the pass, because I hated the silence, felt every second of it as a kind of dread.

My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing one another so well you don't need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.

I couldn't have imagined being any happier, loving anywhere else as much.

Not until Sabrina brought us here, to her family's summer home on the coast of Maine. Not until I met Wyn.

2

Real Life

Monday

Think of your happy place, the cool voice in my ear instructs.

Picture it. Glimmering blue washes across the backs of my eyes.

How does it smell? Wet rock, brine, butter sizzling in a deep fryer, and a spritz of lemon on the tip of my tongue.

What do you hear? Laughter, the slap of water against the bluffs, the hiss of the tide drawing back over sand and stone.

What can you feel? Sunlight, everywhere. Not just on my bare shoulders or the crown of my head but inside me too, the irresistible warmth that comes only from being in the exact right place with the exact right people.

Mid-descent, the plane gives another sideways jolt.

I stifle a yelp, my fingernails sinking into the armrests. I'm not a nervous flier, per se. But every time I come to this particular airport, I do so on a tiny plane that looks like it was made out of scrap metal and duct tape.

My guided meditation app has reached an inconvenient stretch of silence, so I repeat the prompt myself: Think of your happy place, Harriet.

I slide my window shade up. The vast, brilliant expanse of the sky makes my heart flutter, no imagination required. There are a handful of places, of memories, that I always come back to when I need to calm myself, but this place tops the charts.

It's psychosomatic, I'm sure, but suddenly I can smell it. I hear the echoey call of the circling gulls and feel the breeze riffle my hair. I taste ice-cold beer, ripe blueberries.

In mere minutes, after the longest year of my life, I'll be reunited with my favorite people in the world, in our favorite place in the world.

The plane's wheels clatter against the runway. Some passengers in the back burst into applause, and I yank out my earbuds, anxiety lifting off me like dandelion seeds. Beside me, the grizzled seatmate who'd snored through our death-defying flight blinks awake.

He looks at me from under a pair of curly white eyebrows and grunts, "Here for the Lobster Festival?"

"My best friends and I go every year," I say.

He nods.

"I haven't seen them since last summer," I add.

He harrumphs.

"We all went to school together, but we live in different places now, so it's hard to get our schedules to line up."

The unimpressed look in his eye amounts to I asked one yes or no question.

Ordinarily, I would consider myself to be a superb seatmate. I'm more likely to get a bladder infection than to ask a person to get up so I can use the lavatory. Ordinarily, I don't even wake someone up if they're asleep on my shoulder, drooling down my chest.

I've held strangers' babies and farty therapy dogs for them. I've pulled out my earbuds to oblige middle-aged men who will perish if they can't share their life stories, and I've flagged down flight attendants for paper bags when the post-spring break teenager next to me started looking a little green.

So I'm fully aware this man in no way wants to hear about my magical upcoming week with my friends, but I'm so excited, it's hard to stop. I have to bite my bottom lip to keep myself from singing "Vacation" by the Go-Go's into this grumpy man's face as we begin the painfully slow deboarding process.

I retrieve my suitcase from the dinky airport's baggage carousel and emerge through the front doors feeling like a woman in a tampon commercial: overjoyed, gorgeous, and impossibly comfortable-ready for any highly physical activity, including but not limited to bowling with friends or getting a piggyback ride from the unobtrusively handsome guy hired by central casting to play my boyfriend.

All that to say, I am happy.

This is the moment that's carried me through thankless hospital shifts and the sleepless nights that often follow.

For the next week, life will be crisp white wine, creamy lobster rolls, and laughing with my friends until tears stream down our cheeks.

A short honk blasts from the parking lot. Even before I open my eyes and see her, I'm smiling.

"O Harriet, my Harriet!" Sabrina shouts, half falling out of her dad's old cherry-red Jaguar.

She looks, as ever, like a platinum Jackie O, with her perfectly toned olive arms and her classic black pedal pushers, not to mention the vintage silk scarf wrapped around her glossy bob. She still strikes me the same as that first day we met, like an effortlessly cool starlet plucked from another time.

The effect is somewhat tempered by the way she keeps jumping up and down with a poster board on which she's scrawled, in her god-awful serial-killer handwriting, SAY IT'S CAROL SINGERS, a Love Actually reference that could not, actually, make less contextual sense.

I break into a jog across the sunlit parking lot. She shrieks and hurls the poster at the car's open window, where it smacks the frame and flaps to the ground as she takes off running to meet me.

We collide in an impressively uncomfortable hug. Sabrina's exactly tall enough that her shoulder always finds a way to cut off my air supply, but there's still nowhere I'd rather be.

She rocks me back and forth, cooing, "You're heeeeere."

"I'm heeeeere!" I say.

"Let me look at you." She draws back to give me a stern once-over. "What's different?"

"New face," I say.

She snaps her fingers. "Knew it." She loops an arm around my shoulders and turns me toward the car, a cloud of Chanel No. 5 following us. It's been her signature scent since we were eighteen and I was still sporting a Bath & Body Works concoction that smelled like vodka-soaked cotton candy. "Your doctor does great work," she deadpans. "You look thirty years younger. Not a day over newborn."

"Oh, no, it wasn't a medical procedure," I say. "It was an Etsy spell."

"Well, either way, you look great."

"You too," I squeal, squeezing her around the waist.

"I can't believe this is real," she says.

"It's been too long," I agree.

We fall into that hyper-comfortable kind of silence, the quiet of two people who lived together for the better part of five years and still, after all this time, have a muscle memory for how to share space.

"I'm so happy you could make this work," she says as we reach the car. "I know how busy you are at the hospital. Hospitals? They have you move around, right?"

"Hospitals," I confirm, "and nothing could have stopped me."

"By which you mean, you ran out of there mid-brain surgery," Sabrina says.

"Of course not," I say. "I skipped out of there mid-brain surgery. Still have the scalpel in my pocket."

Sabrina cackles, a sound so at odds with her composed exterior that the whole first week we lived together, I jumped every time I heard it. Now all her rough edges are my favorite parts of her.

She throws open the car's back door and tosses my suitcase in with an ease that defies her lanky frame, then stuffs the poster in after it. "How was the flight?"

"Same pilot as last time," I tell her.

Her brow lifts. "Ray? Again?"

I nod. "Of sunglasses-on-the-back-of-the-head fame."

"Never seen him without them," she muses.

"He absolutely has to have a second set of eyes in his neck," I say.

"The only explanation," she agrees. "God, I'm so sorry-ever since Ray got sober, I swear he flies like a dying bumblebee."

I ask, "How did he fly back when he was still drinking?"

"Oh, the same." She hops in behind the steering wheel, and I drop into the passenger seat beside her. "But his intercom banter was a fucking delight."

She digs a spare scarf out of the center console and tosses it at me, a thoughtful if ultimately meaningless gesture since my bun of chaotic dark curls is far beyond saving after three back-to-back flights and a dead sprint through both the Denver airport and Boston Logan.

"Well," I say, "there wasn't a pun to be found in those skies today."

"Tragic," she tuts. The car's engine growls to life. With a whoop, she peels out of the parking lot and points us east, toward the water, the windows down and sunlight rippling over our skin. Even here, an hour inland, yards are dotted with lobster traps, pyramids of them at the edges of lots.

Over the roar of the wind, Sabrina shouts, "HOW ARE YOU?"

My stomach does this seesawing thing, flipping from the absolute bliss of being in this car with her and the abject dread of knowing I'm about to throw a wrench into her plans.

Not yet, I think. Let's enjoy this for a second before I ruin everything.

"GOOD," I shout back.

"AND HOW'S THE RESIDENCY?" she asks.

"GOOD," I say again.

She glances sidelong, wisps of blond snaking out of her scarf to slap her forehead. "WE'VE BARELY SPOKEN IN WEEKS AND THAT'S ALL I GET?"

"BLOODY?" I add.

Exhausting. Terrifying. Electrifying, though not necessarily in a good way. Sometimes nauseating. Occasionally devastating.

Not that I'm involved in much surgery. Two years into the residency, and I'm still doing plenty of scut work. But the slivers of time spent with an attending surgeon and a patient are all I think about when I clock out, as if those minutes weigh more than any of the rest.

Scut work, on the other hand, goes by in a flash. Most of my colleagues dread it, but I kind of like the mundanity. Even as a kid, cleaning, organizing, checking off little tasks on my self-made chore chart gave me a sense of peace and control.

A patient is in the hospital, and I get to discharge them. Someone needs blood drawn, and I'm there to do it. Data needs to be plugged into the computer system, and I plug it in. There's a before and an after, with a hard line between them, proof that there are millions of small things you can do to make life a little better.

"AND HOW'S WYN?" Sabrina asks.

The seesaw inside me jolts again. Sharp gray eyes flash across my mind, the phantom scent of pine and clove wafting over me.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Berkley; First Edition (April 25, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593441273
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593441275
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.34 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.22 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in Contemporary Women Fiction
- #98 in Romantic Comedy (Books)
- #334 in Contemporary Romance (Books)

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Emily Henry

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Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Happy Place, Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read. She studied creative writing at Hope College, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.

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Tiffany

A Seesaw of Happy & Sad

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2023

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Sensitivity warning: Deals with elements of grief and depression — not just grief as it relates to death, but also grief related to nostalgia and happy memories from the past that almost hurt. There is also some cursing, including f-bombs, as well as a few open door romance scenes.

I’ll start by saying that I’ve been on a roll of not finishing books lately (not that I’ll never finish them, just that I’ve been book hopping). Happy Place instantly grabbed me and kept me interested - so much so that I finished this book in two days.

At the start of this book, the story is firmly centered around Harriet & Wyn as they navigate how to act around their friend group because they’ve broken up and none of their friends know. They feel they need to keep the facade going because it’s the last vacation the friends will get to have at their special cottage. As the story goes on, you realize how much the other friendships/relationships are woven into the fabric of the story.

Harry & Wyn’s relationship is believable and is driven home by the flashbacks of their burgeoning relationship. Speaking of the flashbacks — I really enjoyed the dual timeline. Each chapter is dedicated to either a time in the past or the present. In the past, we get to see Harriet and Wyn go from friends to lovers. In the present, it’s a second chance romance. One thing I do wish is that the Happy Place chapters (those in the past) had been labeled with a year; but that’s just the detail-oriented girl in me.

Harriet and Wyn are both characters you can root for, but I also loved the friend group. Emily Henry fully sold me on how deep the characters’ bonds were, both in pieces (seeing friendships paired off in one-on-one settings or smaller groups) and as a whole when we see the dynamic that exists when the entire group is together. The relationships are flushed out and the Happy Place at the cottage truly feels like it would be a great vacation spot.

All of that being said, I feel like I read two books. The first half, which is fairly light-hearted and predominately fun, and then the second half, which could feel pretty heart wrenching at times. Harriet and Wyn deal with real problems that come up when you’ve been with someone for a length of time (disappointments, grief, stress, money troubles) — the problems are mainly shown in the flashback chapters, but the ghosts of the problems are felt in the real time chapters.

Once I got to the 60% mark, there were chapters that were brutal. We only get Harriet’s POV, so we know how Harriet feels/can tell what she truly wants, but at times it seems as though she’s alone in her feelings. The lack of communication between the two characters does make sense because of their history, but it really draws out the pain felt through Harriet’s eyes. A large part of the problem in the chapters taking place in the past is that Harriet and Wyn could both see the best in each other, but not in themselves. Additionally, because they don’t talk about why they feel how they feel or the reasons for their coping mechanisms that started in their childhoods, cracks in the relationship turn to chasms. Beyond Harriet & Wyn and their relationship turmoil, we also see that each of the character’s in the friend group have their own cracks that they’re not sharing.

This book hooked me and I did enjoy it, especially the wit and banter, but it’s not fully what I expected. It gets very deep at points in exploring the characters and their emotions. Though there’s happiness and the communication and satisfying conclusion eventually come, I felt a bit melancholy when it was over.

21 people found this helpful

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Henry's most mature and complete novel to-date; it might also be her best

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2023

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I approached Happy Place with some caution; where previous Emily Henry books shot straight to 5-star ratings, I had a couple of reader friends suggest this one was a notch below previous efforts. And so perhaps it was my tempered expectations going in, but Happy Place turned out to be a very happy surprise for me.

The novel opens with our narrator, Harriet Kilpatrick, en route to her annual week-long excursion to fictional Knott's Harbor, Maine for their Lobster Fest. Since her first day of freshman year at Mattingly College, when fate put her in a room with Sabrina Armas and Cleo James, they have been her best friends and surrogate family. Sabrina's father owns a lake house in Knott's Harbor, and the trio has been spending the week of Lobster Fest there ever since graduation. It's a chance to reconnect and relive old times, even while life continues to move forward and threaten to drive a wedge into their friendship.

And, of course, over time they have added significant others. Eight years post-graduation, their group of 3 has swelled to 5, to include Sabrina's beau Parth and Cleo's longtime girlfriend Kimmy. Noticeably absent this year is Harriet's fiancé, Wyn, for one very good reason: he is no longer her fiancé, and hasn't been for the last five months. There's one problem, though -- neither Harriet nor Wyn have told their friends. And when Harriet arrives, there's another problem: Wyn is there.

What follows is a tension-filled week where Harriet and Wyn present a "nothing is wrong" front to their friends so as not to ruin the week, while remembering all of the things they love about each other and beginning to drift back together. Henry does a really nice job of bouncing between the present week in Maine and flashbacks that let us see the evolution (and dissolution) of Harriet and Wyn's relationship. We get to see them fall in love, and we get to relive their rapid why-would-they-do-that breakup. And we get to see them try to reconnect, while also trying to balance what their heart says with the pressures of careers, the expectations of friends and family, the challenge of a long-distance relationship, and the need for happiness outside of what a partner can give you.

Like with all of Henry's novels, Happy Place has the trademark witty banter and humor I've come to expect (and, it turns out, I can start to predict -- I was completing punchlines for characters while listening to the audio book). I appreciated that this was more nuanced and serious than just a "let's watch them get back together and swoon while they do" rom-com. At one point Sabrina says, "God, I've been crying a lot this week." to which Harriet replies, "Me too." There are lots of tears, and with good reason. Happy Place is less predictable and a bit darker than Henry's previous novels, and I think it's better for it.

After being late to the Emily Henry party and stumbling upon Book Lovers last year (my #9 book of 2022), I went back to the start earlier this year and read Beach Read, Henry's first novel. In my review, I noted that it lacked some of the polish of Book Lovers, but that was fun to be able to go back and see where she started, so that you can appreciate her progression and growth as a novelist. I think Happy Place continues that progression, and for me it might be her most complete book yet and one that demonstrates her continued evolution and maturity as an author.

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Kimberley Jarman

A romance that understands the difficulties of love

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2023

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I really enjoyed both Wynne and Harriett's characters, they both come to the table with earnest and kind personalities and a lot of childhood issues. The rest of the characters were quite one dimensional though so I only half brought in to the friendship group.

The plot was well constructed, the reader was as much in the dark about what had really caused the break up as Harriet was and that felt very true to life.

I have seen a lot of complaints that the plot is based around miscommunication and if only the couple had just sat down and talked things over then there wouldn't be an issue.

I think that's fairly unrealistic and that the author was trying to say something a bit deeper.

Grief can really negatively impact a relationship and phycological issues developed in childhood can cause people to behave in ways that aren't always very clear.

I did find myself wishing that Harriett would stand up for herself a bit more though and I also felt the issues her friends had hindered the story.

But the writing and the romance itself were deeply impactful and I cried more than once.

#quote 'Like even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters

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Sara

Great story about finding yourself in and amongst your favourite people and places.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 17, 2023

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Following the ebbs and flows on life, a great story of friendship and love. A great advocate for finding your own happiness no matter your current life or job or the people in it. I liked following these characters journeys even though the story is from one perspective, the story leads us on a journey of self discovery for everyone within this friendship group. And no matter how different their perceptions of happiness might look like, they'll always have each other.

Sarah H.

The romance aspect was a bit to intense for me.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 11, 2023

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I’ve read a few of this author’s novels now and whilst this was my least favourite, it’s still a nice read.

The things I really enjoyed about the story was the strong bond between Harriet and her friends that has lasted long after their school days. It’s nice to have a friendship that can carry on with people taking different paths and not seeing as much of each other. Every time they come together though it’s like they have never been apart. I also loved the Happy Place. A gorgeous cottage that is a huge part of Harriet and her friends lives where they spent time together whilst growing up and somewhere they come every year to meet up and relieve their younger years.

It felt very much like when you go on holiday and you fall in love with the weather, the people, the sights and sounds. You know it can’t last and that you have to go back to reality but that time away, it can do so much for your soul and the author captured that perfectly. I’m sure we all have a happy place where the weight of the world lifts off your shoulders when there.

The story focuses on Wyn and Harriet’s relationship which has hit a stumbling block. We have alternating chapters with present day and in the past when the two get together and and their relationship is at that full intensity stage. In fact their whole relationship is quite an intense one. Maybe I am just an old cynic and I know that this is a romance novel but it was slightly over the top for me. Does all consuming love really exist? I felt at times it was overpowering. Don’t get me wrong, some parts are really sweet and I did like all the characters and whilst I love a good romance, I mean who doesn’t, this was just a bit too sickly for me.

Happy Place overall is a nice read which will have you reminiscing about your first love as well as friendships you had back at school. I think depending on whether you look back at that time fondly or not will depend on how much you enjoy this novel. The setting is wonderful and I could easily see why it’s so special to the characters. Everyone needs a happy place in their lives. This was definitely a bitter sweet read for me as yes it’s cute but the romance aspect was just too much which is down to personal preference and I know many others have loved it.

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Carocienta

Este libro es una joya.

Reviewed in Mexico on July 11, 2023

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Creo que este libro se acaba de convertir en mi favorito de la autora.

La trama principal se centra en la relación de Harriet y Wyn intercalando el pasado y el presente. Podemos ver cómo se conocen, la atracción inicial, la devoción, el afecto, la ruptura repentina y devastadora y el presente mientras intentan fingir ante sus amigos que todo sigue bien, mientras cada uno sufre la perdida a su manera.

También vemos cómo Harriet conoce a Sabrina y Cleo, luego a Wyn y, como se vuelven los mejores amigos y cómo pasan una década juntos volviéndose como una familia.

Harriet me ha encantado, es una mujer fuerte e inteligente pero también alguien sensible con el corazón roto mientras intenta mantener a flote su vida como residente en un hospital y cumplir con las expectativas de su padres. Me gusta que este libro además del romance trata de cómo ella crece como persona y encuentra lo que le hace feliz pero también lo que no la hace feliz y aprende a soltarlo.

Sin duda Wyn es el que ha robado mi corazón, el tipo es lindo dese el primer momento con su encanto juvenil y su coqueteo constante pero a medida que la historia avanza también descubrimos sus miedos e inseguridades. Me encanta que sea tan genuino y abierto al momento de expresar sus sentimientos y sobre todo que él también encontrara paz consigo mismo, su carrera y su vida en general.

La relación de Wyn y Harriet me atrapo desde el inicio con su química natural, viendo cómo su relación va creciendo, me partieron el corazón con su ruptura pero también lo sanaron, demostrándonos que con el paso de los años cambiamos, nuestras prioridades y sueños también cambian pero la comunicación asertiva es la clave en toda relación. Mientras leía no podía dejar de pensar que quería que tuvieran su final feliz porque lo merecían muchísimo.

Siento que este libro golpea una fibra sensible también con las amistades longevas, la gente cambia con el tiempo y no se puede seguir viviendo cómo 10 años atrás pero cuando las personas son importantes para ti siempre se encontrara la manera de conservarlos en tu vida. Este libro también trata sobre ese cambio de adulto joven al inicio de los veintes con un montón de planes y sueños a adulto de los 30s donde tu vida ya esta más plateada y las cosas son mas calmadas.

Me ha gustado que este libro trata relaciones tanto entre amigos como de pareja (tanto hetero como una lesbica) todas diferentes pero todas sanas, con sus altibajos pero bien planteadas.

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Louisa's mum

Worth sticking with

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2023

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Initially I found this book far too slow paced for my liking with most of action happening in final 100 pages. For anyone struggling though it’s definitely worth sticking with.

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