Disappointing. I was looking for a fun read to take me away from all the drama and upset in our lives the past year and in particular the events following January 6, 2021. A romantic comedy was exactly what I needed and when I read the blurb for Beach Read I thought I'd found exactly what I was looking for.

It wasn't. It borders on women's fiction without really going there -- and I generally find women's fiction kind of boring. Beach Read had moments where the story was interesting, but generally it came across as a cathartic pity party. It did nothing for me. The characters were self-absorbed and not remotely likeable. Their "secrets" seemed contrived and I felt like "who cares?" I haven't read Henry before and don't see myself reading her again.

A heartwarming story that is perfect for summer. It features flawed characters and a realistic family dynamic. It's definitely a feel-good story and was such a delight to read.

'BEACH READ' is billed as a romance, and it is, but it is so much more than that.

It's sassy, it's sad, it's complicated, it's infuriating, it's premise is ORIGINAL while being predictable. It's light at the end of sadness, fear and tragedy.

There are not so many secondary characters that it's hard to know them, but we are able get to know them. I like that, especially when they are big players in the main characters lives.

". . . More of Dad saying things like, "Your mother has been a lot of people in the twenty years I've known her, and I've had the chance to fall in love with every single one of them, Janie. That's the key to marriage. You have to keep falling in love with each new version of each other, and it's the best feeling in the whole world."

The turn from really sassy to fairly dark was a bit jolting, but the remnant humor still mixed in makes it real and understandable to the story. I feel as if the (ahem) romance part was thrown in to earn 'BEACH READ' its 'romance' genre.

2.5 stars. the premise sounded good, but this didn't meet my expectations.
so much repetition: fingers running through hair, stomach dropping, hip gripping... it was okay, for a 'beach read.'

I don't read much romance but I like the premise of this book which is about the budding romance between two authors, one who is a literary author and the other who writes romances. That story line didn't let me down, it was fun and so was the adorable banter between the couple. Even though the story was good, the romance tropes started to bore me after awhile, but I think if you normally read and enjoy contemporary romance, you would probably really enjoy this book. It was charming in many ways.

The story features two authors who knew one another in graduate school. The heroine wrote romance with very happy endings and the hero wrote dark, literary novels with tragic endings. She disliked him because he said that her writing showed that she thought like a fairy-tale princess.
Fast forward several years. The pair coincidentally end up having lakeside beach houses next door to one another in a small town in Michigan. The heroine doesn’t want to like the hero because she loves her books and thinks he is arrogant and condescending.
I would call this a literary romance because the emotional difficulties experienced by the hero and the heroine are deeper and darker than one usually finds in a romance, and the writing style is more lyrical and poetic.

I loved this book about two published authors and college nemeses who make a bet to swap genres and see who will be the first to get his/her novel published. Actually, that is merely a sub-plot of this delightful book. The real plot is about a woman reeling from a family crisis who moves to her father's beach house to finish her long-awaited fifth(?) novel, only to find out she is living next door to her former college nemesis, who happens to also be a New York Times Bestselling author. Emily Henry has an obvious gift of writing and I really enjoyed the repartee between the two characters. The only grouse I have is that I feel like the last two chapters of the book needed a little help (I didn't like the way the h was portrayed or that the H actually contemplated taking back the woman who dumped him for his best man) and did not seem as well-written as the previous chapters. However, all in all, this was an extremely enjoyable and "unputdownable" book. I can't wait to read more books written by Emily Henry. Three hearty cheers!

A fun and insightful romantic comedy. Great for readers who are looking to get into the Romance genre.

I loved the witty banter between the main characters. It made me laugh out loud several times!

It's all there in the title...as advertised! This is a fun romcom that I wanted to do a little more reconciling the two authors styles and a little less swooning/pining. So much pining. But: FUN!