Andie’s Book Club: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
Need a vacation? It’s at your fingertips with Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation. And now it’s going to be a movie!!!
You know those books that feel less like reading and more like hanging out with friends you secretly wish were yours? Yeah, that’s People We Meet on Vacation. Emily Henry nailed it. And now it's going to be a movie!
The story follows Poppy and Alex, two complete opposites who should not work as friends but somehow totally do. She’s the wild, let’s-hop-on-a-plane-to-anywhere type. He’s the khakis-button-down-sensible-shoes type. Yet every summer for a decade, they take a trip together. Honestly, where do I sign up for a friendship like this?
It’s fascinating. How so much of love is about who you are with someone.
The book bounces back and forth between their past trips (from New Orleans to San Francisco to Croatia) and their present, where Poppy realizes they haven’t spoken in two years. Something happened on their last trip, and now she’s determined to fix things by inviting Alex on one final vacation. Cue a slightly chaotic, very funny, and ridiculously heartfelt week together in Palm Springs.
I wish I could bottle this moment and wear it as a perfume. It would always be with me.
What I loved most was how real these characters feel. Henry doesn’t just tell us who Poppy and Alex are; she lets us live with them. You can feel the tension in their silences, the warmth in their inside jokes, and the way years of friendship blur the line between platonic and something much deeper. Even the side characters they meet on trips (people you meet on vacation) bring color and charm to the story.
By the end, I wasn’t just rooting for them; I felt like I’d been their invisible third wheel on every vacation. I laughed with them, cried with them, and sometimes shouted (in my head) at them for doing or saying something dumb. I truly felt like I was with them on each of their adventures.
Vacations always end. It's the very fact that it's finite that makes traveling special.
People We Meet on Vacation is funny, heartfelt, and brimming with the kind of characters that pull you so close, you forget you’re reading at all. Enjoy it - and book a trip.
