Nupur Agrawal
You definitely don’t expect to giggle and swoon through the most part of a 361-page book and find yourself crying like a baby in the last 20 pages. For me, this book is less about finding love when you are in a dark place and more about feeling every part of your heart light up from within when you truly forgive someone you can never stop loving.
Set in the backdrop of North Bear Shores (a fictional small town), Beach Read feels like a peaceful summer vacation or a time-off often taken to escape a painful past or to dwell in it in a different scenery. Unfortunately, the bestselling romance writer January doesn’t have that liberty for she is broke and aggrieved.
January’s visit to her deceased father’s beach house in North Bear Shores is less of a holiday and more like a torture. While she is grieving her father’s sudden demise and coming face-to-face with some of his dark secrets engraved in this dilapidated house, she is oblivious and unprepared to face her own past.
The last thing she expected was to run into another writer, Augustus (Gus). Gus is everything she’s not, and she knows this because she had known him once. But this time, they have something in common: a writer’s block. A weird challenge follows between the two writers. They decide to swap genres and help each other write their books. As January and Gus spend time doing research for their respective novels, they gradually find themselves swimming inside each other’s minds and past lives.
The vivid description of the lake town in Michigan transported me to the quiet countryside, peppered with low-key cafes where everyone knows each other. Speaking of cafes, the subtle mention of the queer relationship between the cafe owner Pete and Maggi was sweet.
Gus’s arrogant-because-I-had-a-troubled-childhood character was slightly remnant of the Mills & Boon boys but that doesn’t change the fact that his conversations and chemistry with January were free-flowing and cosy. I grinned throughout their fleeting yet deliberate references of classics like Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me, A Walk To Remember, and many more.
I found myself giggling at the way January and Gus roast each other even during their most intimate moments alone. But, the most intense part of Beach Read lies towards the end of this book: a precious gift which January’s father leaves behind, changing her life forever.
P.S. I am currently reading another book by Emily Henry ‘People You Meet On Vacation’ and it’s bewildering how it has a completely different writing style.
