Book Review: ‘Book Lovers’ by Emily Henry
Image Credit: Quinn Keaney
Emily Henry, the patron saint of top-tier book boyfriends, has done it again, my friends: Book Lovers really is that good. I mean, ‘sobbing-as-I-finish-it-at-2-AM-and-immediately-wake-up-my-husband-to-tell-him-how-good-it-was,’ good.
Her latest romance (rom-com? I guess it’s a rom-com) introduces us to Nora, a 30-something New York City career woman whose life revolves around two things and two things only: her job in publishing and her younger sister, Libby. Though Libby is an adult with a family of her own (two little kids and another on the way), Nora has never been able to give up the protective, motherly instinct she has with her due to their unconventional childhood and losing their actual mom fairly suddenly a decade earlier.
Nora, nicknamed “The Shark” by her colleagues, has spent her entire career pushing herself to be more and more successful so that the two of them will never be unstable, cash-strapped, and stressed again. So, in an effort to reconnect before Libby welcomes baby no. three, they leave the big city for the rundown town of Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for a summer month of sister bonding.
But this is a romance, remember? So, enter: Charlie Lastra. A book editor with snarky heart of gold buried deep, deep beneath his expensive all-black attire. Two years earlier he and Nora shared a ~spicy~ business lunch where they were basically at each others’ throats regarding Dusty, the top author Nora represents (Charlie hated her latest book, Nora refused to admit it wasn’t perfect). And now, due to the world’s biggest coincidence, they’re both in Sunshine Falls for the foreseeable future and tasked with bringing Dusty’s next novel to the finish line. (Which just so happens to be about a cold, bitchy book agent who looks, sounds, and acts a lot like Nora. And is titled Frigid. Awk.)
Book Review: 'Beach Read' by Emily Henry
〰️
Book Review: 'Beach Read' by Emily Henry 〰️
So yes, sparks fly! As do dresses as they’re hurled through the air before skinny dipping in a pond in the middle of the woods. And perfect, swoon-y words like, “you fucking undo me” spoken in the heat of the moment. (Sorry, did you catch that? Let me say again: “YOU FUCKING UNDO ME.” Ugh!!!!) The chemistry between Charlie and Nora is off the charts, and once again I found myself in full adoration mode of Henry’s ability to craft such authentic-sounding banter that 1.) doesn’t feel forced, 2.) doesn’t feel cheesy, and 3.) didn’t make me cringe, not even once, not even a little bit.
Just like in my former favorite Henry novel, Beach Read, (yeah Book Lovers has taken the top spot, if you haven’t been able to guess from this review yet), there’s a lot more happening in the story than a simple tale of “girl meets boy, girl hates boy, girl meets boy again, girl starts to think boy is less of a d-bag than girl first suspected, girl befriends boy, girl and boy text about Bigfoot erotica and salads covered in ham, girl and boy fall in love.”
There are profound discussions of grief and trauma, as well as what happens to us when we bury or push aside feelings of loss instead of facing a tragedy head on. And there is, of course, some really beautiful stuff in this book about sisterhood. I myself have a little sister, and as the more type A stereotype of the two of us, a lot of the novel rang true for me. (Occasionally uncomfortably so.) Nora’s devotion to her sister at the cost of her own well-being is something I think a lot of older siblings who struggle with not being in control might recognize. (Or just roll their eyes at because they think they’re in total control. They’ve never not been in control. They’re 100 percent on top of it all. Mhmm, yes.)
It’s not a perfect book by any means — for instance, the town of Sunshine Falls is pretty thinly described/written, and Nora isn’t anywhere near deserving of her cold-hearted nickname — but it’s still lovely. Just lovely, lovely, lovely.