Tell All, Tell Tall: The Skeleton is the Key

Emily Henry writes a rad romcom. Her characters are warm and witty, their worlds a heady mix of magic and familiarity. But her latest, Great Big Beautiful Life, is on another level.

Writer Alice Scott wants to make her mark. So when she learns that celebrity recluse Margaret Ives is holed up on an island in Georgia, she's determined to write her biography. But Pulitzer Prize-winner Hayden Anderson may have beaten her to it. Per Margaret, Alice and Hayden will spend a month interviewing her, separately, under ironclad NDAs. Then Margaret will make her choice. It's not what Alice wants, but she'll do anything to land the job. So she goes all in, setting out to win over even no-nonsense Hayden. An incurable optimist, Alice wears Hayden down one green tea at a time. As they grow closer, it becomes a challenge not to discuss Margaret and the stories she feeds them. Still, they can't help but wonder: Who is Margaret Ives really, and what does she want from them?

Engaging and poignant, Great Big Beautiful Life is one of those books that stays with you. Although Margaret's story within the story is the star, Alice and Hayden are the heart. Their writerly romance is irresistible, their connection stronger than any NDA.

Finding out how Margaret's -- and their -- stories end is the key to a great, big, beautiful beginning.

Musical Pairs: The Old Switcheroo Made Shiny and New

As romcoms go, Emily Henry's Funny Story is classic screwball.  Daphne Vincent's and Miles Nowak's significant others have ditched them to be together, leaving them no choice but to shack up and launch their own buzzworthy albeit faux romance.  Somewhere between farm stand crawls and action flicks, they catch feelings, and drama ensues.  Still, Funny Story isn't any old meet-cute courtship couched in a summer-at-the-lake montage.  Because, like all of Henry's romances, it hums with cerebrally sexy, soul-baring wit and emotion.  No-nonsense librarian Daphne and stoner-with-a-heart-of-gold Miles are so flawed and quirky that you feel like you know them.  I especially love Daphne's love of books and what she tells Miles about it:

"I like that it feels like I can live as many lives as I want." (127)

Same, Daphne, same.

Devil-may-care yet tender Miles is just who Daphne needs to venture outside her comfort zone.  Just as whiteboard plan-plotting but sensitive Daphne is who Miles needs to rein himself in.  That said, these characters are complex and layered, belying their tidy stereotypes.  Their love story may not be as glossy as the ones they shared with their exes.  But it's most definitely fun and funny and real.

And that's a win because at the end of the day, our stories are all that we have. 

Books We Read on Vacation

When I packed for Cape May, I restrained myself by tossing in just one book.  Because you don't go on vacation to read, right?  But the husband goes to sleep before I do, which meant that I had some prime reading time on my hands.  So the first night, I delved into the second half of Emily Henry's Happy Place.  As you know, I've read and loved all of Henry's books (People We Meet on Vacation is my favorite), and Happy Place is no different.  Henry's dialogue is second to none, and in Happy Place, she's at her wittiest.  Her characters' conversations crackle with pithy puns and pop culture references sure to delight millennials and beyond (because technically, I'm a millennial too, albeit on the oldster side).  

So, what's this must-read all about?  Simply stated, it's a second chance romance.  Harriet is a stressed-out surgical resident in San Francisco, and Wyn is a laidback but grieving woodworker in Montana.  They're thrown together for one last magical Maine summer with their college besties before the sale of their beloved lake cottage.  So there are hijinks and, of course, all the feels.  Plus a lot about growing pains and what it really means to go after what you want.  It truly is a happy place, one that delivers a deceptively deep message.  Because happiness isn't for anyone content to stay in the shallow end of the lake.  

Needless to say, I finished it in one sitting -- and instantly felt bereft.  I do not like being without a book.  And I didn't know of any bookstores in Cape May.  So the next afternoon, when the husband and I wandered into the hotel coffee shop, I was ecstatic to see a few books on offer.  

There was a novelization of a Hallmark movie, a depressing-looking biography, and a celebutante novel by Lauren Conrad that I almost went for because I was, at that very moment, wearing not one but three LC Lauren Conrad items.  But there were also two titles by Mary Kay Andrews, an author I'd heard of but never read. 

I chose the lone copy of Sunset Beach, which turned out to be a murder mystery about an offed Florida hotel maid.  (The irony of this being sold in a hotel was not lost on me, nor was the title.  Because although this Sunset Beach is, as I've said, in Florida, there's one in Cape May too.)  Anyway, for a book chosen under duress, it was pretty good, and I read a third of it that night.  Not only did I get my fiction fix, but I might have even found a new go-to author!

Book adventures -- you never know where they'll take you.

More Than Nerds: Sharks Mate for Life

Book people are the best people (yes, even better than fashion people).  So, when I started reading Emily Henry's latest, Book Lovers, I knew I was in for the kind of banter that burgeons between people who make their living in letters.

New York City publishing powerhouses Nora-named-for-Nora-Ephron Stephens and Charlie Lastra are an odd couple.  No, she's not a loveable kook whereas he's an acquired-taste curmudgeon, nor is she the straitlaced sophisticate to his irresistible man child.  Instead, both can be kindly described as stick-in-the-mud corporate sharks.  Although to be fair, only Nora is actually nicknamed The Shark.  So yeah, no Oscar, two Felixes.  In other words, these two are made for each other.

Not that they see it that way.  Or are even a couple.  Nora thinks that she's finally escaped her cold-hearted colleague when she and her sister land in rural North Carolina for some summer R&R.  But then Charlie rears his oh-so-handsome head just as Nora is hate-texting him, throwing her lazy vacay -- and her plans to snag a Hallmark hometown hottie -- for a loop.  Still, both Nora and Charlie are too prickly for most people to understand let alone tolerate, so it isn't long before they realize that they're cut from the same page proofs.  Not since Gone with the Wind has a story made such a strong case for "like goes with like."  So fine, they like each other.  But why should we like them?  (The last time I checked, people want to swim with dolphins, not sharks.)  Because they're book people.  And behind every book person is someone who's been hurt and found what she needed in fiction.  Nora puts it best:

"Daily life was unpredictable, but the bookstore was a constant.  In winter, when our apartment was too cold, or in summer, when the window unit couldn't keep up, we'd go downstairs and read in the shop's coveted window seat.  Sometimes Mom would take us to the Museum of Natural History or the Met to cool down, and I'd bring my shredded copy of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler with me and think, If we had to, we could live here like the Kincaid siblings." (225)

It's the rare book that can drop inconvenient trope truths and retain its lighthearted status, but Book Lovers does it with style.  Because although it isn't easy for everyone to accept that opposites don't always attract, not all career women are heartless, and sometimes small towns are more depressing than darling, Henry shows us the world as it is but also as we'd like it to be, through the spell of her snarky-sweet prose.

Oh Henry, you've done it again.

Beach Block Blues: Don't Hit Snooze, Your Pop Rock Jam is Up Next

Writer's block.  We've all had it.  That voice that mockingly chants, There's nothing new under the sun.  Everything that needs to be said has been said.  So park yourself in front of a Real Housewives marathon with a feed bag of Cheetos and give up already.  Now imagine that you're broke and the ability to purchase said Cheetos depends on you churning out the novel you promised your agent by the end of the summer.  And that your crush-slash-nemesis, who's also a writer, just happens to be your new neighbor.  And that he's broke with writer's block too.

Welcome to Emily Henry's Beach Read.  And yes, it's the very same Emily Henry who wrote People We Meet on Vacation, that other rom com I just read about writers.  This time, the heroine is January Andrews, and her neighbor is Augustus "Gus" Everett.  Both nurse deep emotional wounds, and both are loath to admit it.  But their shared college past injects a jolt of electricity and fun into their fledgling friendship.  Sweet yet full of substance (Think Bundt cake instead of cotton candy.  Although cotton candy does make an appearance.), this novel is as much about the writing process as it is about romance.  I love how it challenges the idea that chick lit writers and readers are "less than."  As a writer of women's fiction, January is an ambassador from that world.  Scrappy and witty, she's quick to defend her genre and how it helped her through a tough time.  Gus, on the other hand, is firmly in camp literary fiction and as such, aptly cast as January's brooding antagonist.  But when the two switch genres for the summer, what starts as a game to beat writer's block ends up making them better storytellers and brings them closer to each other -- and to their true selves.  My favorite part is when Gus reveals that, contrary to what January thinks, he respects her writing:

"You make beautiful things, because you love the world, and maybe the world doesn't always look how it does in your books, but . . .  I think putting them out there, that changes the world a little bit.  And the world can't afford to lose that." (293)  

Well put, Gus.  Realism has its place, but one of the reasons we read is to get out of our heads and realize that life's not so bad.  Too much reality can send us right back to those Cheetos -- and the bad kind of unrealistic fiction (i.e. reality TV).  That said, Beach Read is also funny.  Henry's banter game is as strong as ever, and January and Gus's convos are a hoot.  Because you can't choke down the kale of personal growth without a large dose of ranch dressing.  

Even if January and Gus eat mostly pizza.  

Vacation, All I Ever Hunted: Friends Without Benefits

When I first read about Emily Henry's People We Meet on Vacation on Ivy's Closet, I knew it was my kind of novel.  Ivy's Closet, by the way, is a fun and creative blog featuring original fiction, book and movie reviews, music playlists, and more.  If you enjoy pop culture and engaging writing (and who doesn't?), then I highly recommend it, along with its sister blogs Ellie and Caitlin & Megan.  So, People We Meet on Vacation.  I was instantly into it because it's about the kind of romance that everyone wants: the kind that begins as friendship.  Alex and Poppy have enough inside jokes to fill a book, accept each other's flaws (an acceptance, that is, accompanied by good-natured ribbing), and are protective of each other.  After meeting at the University of Chicago, they go on a summer vacation every year.  Henry describes these trips as flashbacks, letting us get to know Alex and Poppy slowly and through the bittersweet lens of nostalgia.  And although their living situations, jobs, and romantic statuses change, they keep at it for a decade.

Poppy is a free spirit who showers three times a week and lives in vintage jumpsuits whereas Alex is a planner who runs at dawn and prefers brand-new button-downs.  Maybe that's why they stay in the friend zone.  Yet although much is made of their Odd Couple ways, they're at their most comfortable -- and happiest -- together.  Which tracks, because they have three key things in common: 1) They're both writers, 2) They both have a stellar sense of humor (so much more important than on-the-same-page hygiene), and 3) They both come from the same small town in Ohio.  Interestingly, it's the town of their origin stories that keeps them from becoming even closer.  Haunted by being taunted in high school, Poppy dropped out of college and fled to New York City, eager to begin her globe-trotting life as a travel writer.  But Alex put down roots, building a career as an English teacher-slash-short story writer to be near his dad, who's still grieving the death of his mom.  And that works.  Because Alex and Poppy have their summer vacations, or as Poppy puts it, their "world for two."  

But sooner or later, vacations must end, even for Alex and Poppy.  As they enter their thirties, they can no longer pretend that they don't have to decide what to do with their lives -- and each other.  Can they move on from the carefree, no-strings-attached vibe of the Go-Go's "Vacation" to the let's-be-each-other's-north-star romance of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home"?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But one thing's for sure.  Sometimes, the people we meet on vacation aren't strangers, but the best versions of ourselves.

Then again, sometimes they are strangers.  But that's a different kind of book for a different kind of blog. 

P.S. Don't talk to strangers.