People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry is a friends-to-lovers romance set amongst a series of best friend vacations, a tradition that the protagonists began in college. Poppy and Alex, opposites who become friends in college, have little in common aside from their shared history and a magnetic pull to one another. After ten years of summer vacations, in which the friends would catch up after living very different lives, a trip goes wrong, and the pair stop speaking. As Poppy reassesses her life’s work and goals, she is drawn back to the times she was happy…with Alex. So, she sets about repairing the fractured friendship, never dreaming it would develop into more. Read on for more of my thoughts on People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, along with my favorite quotes from the book:
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About the Author, Emily Henry
Emily Henry is a bestselling romance and young adult author. Based in Cincinnati, Henry keeps her private life pretty well under wraps. Her first YA novel, The Love That Split the World, was published in 2016. Beach Read, her first non-YA novel, was published in 2020. Since Beach Read, she has published a new book each year, with Great Big Beautiful Life as her most recent, released in April 2025. Three of her books (People We Meet on Vacation, Book Lovers, and Beach Read) are currently in development to be made into films. People We Meet on Vacation stars Emily Bader (the star of My Lady Jane) and Tom Blyth and is available on Netflix.
Plot Summary
Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
My Thoughts on People We Meet on Vacation
5/5 Stars
As with any Emily Henry novel, I was sucked in right from the start. With a dynamic intro scene that introduces the reader to Poppy and Alex in an unusual way, I knew I would be a fan of this book.
Poppy is quirky, but not too far into the manic pixie dream girl archetype to feel cliche. Alex feels like a real person, he is written so lifelike and consistent. The layout of the book, with a series of alternating time jumps to previous vacations, could get complicated at times, but it all comes together beautifully by the end. Plus, it kept me reading because I wanted to know what happened next in the contemporary storyline!
Of all the Emily Henry books I have read so far (all except Beach Read, as of writing this), I have to say that People We Meet on Vacation is probably my least favorite. But bear with me, because that sounds harsh. Friends to lovers isn’t always a trope I enjoy in romance novels. However, I do love anything Emily Henry writes, so even my “least favorite” of hers is still a top 10 read in my book. I would recommend this to pretty much anyone, and I am excited for the movie!
Favorite Quotes from People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
- It hurts to want it all, so many things that can’t coexist within the same life.
- “I don’t think I knew I was lonely until I met you.”
- Living, being responsible for myself, seems like an insurmountable challenge lately.
- “I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.”
- All day long, I hear myself saying this same phrase, like I’m desperate to get it out of my body even as I feel incapable: I am having a hard time.
- I feel insufficient as an adult. I look around at the office and see everyone typing, taking calls, making bookings, editing documents, and I know they’re all dealing with at least as much as I am, which only makes me feel worse about how hard everything feels to me.
- We’re happy, and even when we’re not, it’s so much better than it was without him.
- I love him so much. I love him more than I did yesterday, and I already know tomorrow I’ll love him even more, because every piece of him he gives me is another to fall in love with.
- I’m on vacation. Vacations always end. It’s the very fact that it’s finite that makes traveling special. You could move to any one of those destinations you loved in small doses, and it wouldn’t be the spellbinding, life-altering seven days you spend there as a guest, letting a place into your heart fully, letting it change you.
- Maybe things can always get better between people who want to do a good job loving each other. Maybe that’s all it takes.
- For the first time in my life, the airport strikes me as the loneliest place in the world. All those people, parting ways, going off in their own directions, crossing paths with hundreds of people but never connecting.
- Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself.
- Suddenly we’re not kids anymore, and it feels like it happened overnight, so fast I didn’t have time to notice, to let go of everything that used to matter so much, to see that the old wounds that once felt like gut-level lacerations have faded to small white scars, mixed in among the stretch marks and sunspots and little divots where time has grazed against my body.
- “It’s not your job to make me happy, okay? You can’t make anyone happy. I’m happy just because you exist, and that’s as much of my happiness as you have control over.”
- “I’m afraid of loving you for our entire lives, and then having to say goodbye.”
- That crush of happiness, that feeling that this is what life’s about: being somewhere beautiful, with someone you love.
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Where to Buy People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry is available for sale from Amazon and Bookshop.org. I highly recommend the audiobook! Be sure to subscribe to Emily Henry’s newsletter here for more details on her books and recommendations. You can find some bonus content for her books on her website here as well.
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Emily Henry Book Reviews
Check out all of my full reviews of Emily Henry’s books:
- Book Lovers by Emily Henry – Book Review
- Funny Story by Emily Henry – Book Review
- Happy Place by Emily Henry – Book Review
- Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry – Book Review
This post is a part of my What to Read series, where I share themed reading lists and book guides based on genre, time period, theme, or author.
You can peruse more of my What to Read reading guides here!
*This post was originally published in August 2024. It was most recently updated on January 8, 2026.
