Book Review: Beach Read by Emily Henry
July 25, 2025
I am not even going to sugar coat it or dance around it, I think this is my new favorite romance novel. I won’t go as far as saying that I think this is my favorite of the year so far, because I am still thinking about Tom Lake and All Woven with Ivy but as far as romance goes, this book has taken the cake.
We follow the story of a woman named January who is a successful romance author whose father passes away and she learns that everything she thought her life was, was so much more messy than she realized. After his death, January learns that her father has a second home on the beach in Michigan that he lived in with his mistress, Sonya, whenever he was away on a “business trip.” At her father’s funeral, where she is mourning with her mother, who knew about the affair by the way, Sonya shows up with a letter and the keys to said home. January is sent reeling and amidst the loss of her father, her relationship ends with her long term boyfriend, she needs to sell another book or she is broke, and the relationship with her mother becomes strained. January is angry and feeling lost and confused. Her mother had cancer and her father decided the way he was going to cope was with a mistress. And they both knew! She packs up her life and goes to this little cabin on the lake to sell all the things that her father had with this other woman. Much to her displeasure, there is a party going on next door, while she is trying to mope about the fact that her father had a secret double life. Grumpily, she pads her way over to the other house to get them to turn it down, and runs into a man sitting on the back porch, being mopey himself. Come to find out, this is his house, and his birthday. Flash forward to the next morning, and she finds herself in a bookshop/cafe ( that has just about the worst coffee she has ever had ) and asks if they have any of her books ( they do not ) but the sweet owner orders some in and invites her to the bookclub that she hosts at her home. Reluctantly, she goes only to find out 1. Sonya is part of the book club 2. she was invited as a member, not an author 3. her grumpy neighbor is there and she knows him. Augustus Everett is her neighbor, and was also the ridiculously talented, grumpy, devilishly handsome, classmate that she may or may not have had a crush on in college. Learning that they are both successful writers that are in a bit of a slump, they strike up a deal to write a book in each others genre to see if that can cure them of their blocks. Maybe it can cure them of a couple other things too.
This book is about love and loss and friendship and mending what is broken and discovering that parents are no more perfect than we are. Like I said before, I loved this book. It made me feel, it made me root for the characters, it made me want more.
