Happy Place | Emily Henry
"in every universe, it's you for me. even if it's not me for you."
I am obsessed with Emily Henry's writing and her characters. Like, she truly has me in the palm of her hand and I will eat up whatever she's serving. This is the fourth of her novels I've gone through this summer and damn, what a journey it was. I wish I could read all of them for the first time again.
Happy Place is, despite its cheery title and cover art, not very happy. It tells the story of Harriet and Wyn, two exes who ended their eight-year long relationship five months ago, but have not told anyone. They share a friend group and, with a mix of denial and fear of tearing the group apart, they kept this painful thing to themselves, pretending that everything was alright, that they were just doing long-distance. It's an adult story of friendships evolving, of miscommunication in all sorts of relationships, about how operating with fear of a thing can drive you to end up with the feared result anyway.
Harriet, or Harry, is a doctor, a future neurosurgeon who is working in hospitals in San Francisco. She's very smart, very impressive and very, very unhappy. The job she's been working towards what feels like her entire life is draining and making her miserable. She knows she made a mistake following this path but is gripped by fear of giving up - of being a disappointment, of letting anyone down. The false cheery facade she puts on to make things easier is what is breaking up all of her relationships and she needs to come to terms with herself - who she is, what she wants and how to get it.
Wyn is not the smartest of the friend group. This is a big insecurity of his, instilled as we later find out by people praising his brainiac sisters but not expecting much of him at all. Despite having a great childhood and lobing supportive parents, he still feels inferior and goes off to college simply because everyone else was doing it and he wanted to be one of those impressive people. This sore point is something that has a role in the dissolution of his and Harriet's relationship as he had always felt unworthy of her.
Harriet and Wyn have been spending a week every summer in their friend's Sabrina's father's house in Maine for a decade. The whole group, Sabrina and Parth, Cleo and Kimmy, Harriet and Wyn, have been getting together and making the most amazing memories. This summer, though, Harriet is faced with the fact that she finally has to tell her friends about the breakup, has to risk everyone's anger and the dissolution of the group. But when, despite their agreement, she sees Wyn in the house - and Sabrina and Parth announce that they'd be getting married that week, as well as that Sab's father is selling the house soon, it becomes clear that they cannot tell the truth and taint this last week.
And so they keep up the ruse, are affectionate in front of the group and pretend like everything is fie. But nothing is fine. And so, we keep a dual timeline: the real life, the events of this one summer when everything these people have been keeping bottled up comes to a head, and happy place, the memories Harriet comes back to - memories not just of their summer but of Wyn, he true happy place, her home. Noting goes according to plan, and we watch as this group of adults finally grapple with the fact that they're grown ups now, that their lives are going in different directions, they cannot share all their secrets and it's time for their relationships to change.
I loved reading about all they dynamic. Each character was different enough and had their own little story, but it made absolute sense why they would be friends. The conflicts were believable and understandable - there are things you cannot share with everyone, some secrets are too painful, some are too delicate, but the way the conflicts are resolved just made me tear up. Actually, a lot of this book made me tear up, I was a mess. I especially loved Wyn, whose tenderness towards Harriet broke my heart, his feelings of unworthiness and inferiority, but the love her had for her no matter if it was reciprocated... I wanted to hug him so many times. Watching their relationship break down in the flashbacks was so painful because it was avoidable, and yet it was all the sweeter when they finally aired out all the things held back. I was rooting for him and Harriet so badly, I loved their ending.
What else to say then - go read this. Read all the EmHen books. She's brilliant and will be a favorite as longs as she keeps publishing masterpieces like this. I can't wait for her to break my heart again and then put it all together even better that it was before.
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