Beach Read | Emily Henry
"i couldn't leave gus here alone. if he was descending into the darkness, i was going to tie a rope between our waists and go down with him."
This is perfection in book form, I loved it so much. It's primarily a romance book, but it is also about growing up, realizing people aren't perfect, about grief and fear, about facing your own demons.
January and Gus are novelists; she writes romance, he writes literary fiction. And they're college rivals. At least in January's recollection. And this summer, they are also neighbors. January has a perfect life, or as close to it as one can get, which seems irreparably shattered when he father dies. The man she has idealized had been keeping secrets - and one of them shows up at his funeral. He had been cheating on her mother while she was sick with cancer.
Once a staunch romantic, January turns into a cynic when the one relationship she viewed as perfect, the one she had been striving to create for herself, turns out not to be so. Broke, with a crippling writer's block and looming deadline, January moves to her father's secret Michigan beach house she inherited.
Things get worse once she realizes that he next door neighbor is none other than Augustus, whom she knew back in college, and with whom she had a bit of a rivalry going on in their creative writing classes. He seems a bit down on his luck as well, and this turns into a bonding experience. As they get to talking, they hatch up a perfect plan to overcome their respective writer's blocks: January will write a literary fiction novel and Gus will try out his hand at romance and a happily-ever-after.
As a part of this project, they help each other immerse into the genre - they take one another on different outings (romantic dates and cult research trips) every weekend. Soon, sparks start flying. But, they hate each other, right? Well, as it turns out no, they don't. But despite the undeniable chemistry that's been brewing between the two since their very first meeting, they have to face their own issues before they can give in to what seems unavoidable.
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