I thought the whole thing about millennials was that we don’t get what we want. The houses, the jobs, the financial freedom. We just go to school forever, then bartend ’til we die.
― Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation
Bingo square: Work
The main character’s job is her identity, and she reckons with what it means to have the career you want and feel unfulfilled.
Poppy and Alex are best friends. After meeting during freshmen orientation week, they don’t see one another until nine months later when they are paired up on a cross-country road trip, When Harry Met Sally style, back to their hometown in Ohio. Alex is practical and buttoned up. Poppy is the manic-pixie-outgoing-fun-loving-overflowing-personality-flighty-college-student dream girl. Over the summer break, they start hanging out but nothing romantic develops between them. Then, at some point, they agree to take a week-long summer trip together on the cheap. Despite being best friends, nothing more comes of their closeness. Poppy moves to New York and starts her dream career as a travel writer. Alex finishes grad school and moves back to their hometown to teach high school English. Despite the distance, they continue the tradition of traveling together for one week every year for their annual best friends’ vacation.
The book starts out in the present as Poppy ponders how to get back in touch with Alex after two years of not speaking with one another. This is the mystery at the heart of the book. What happened on their ill-fated trip to Croatia two summers prior?
Even with her dream job, Poppy feels unfulfilled. Not having Alex to share jokes with or confide in causes her to accept that she needs to take action if there is any chance of salvaging what’s left of their friendship. So, she proposes an impromptu trip to Palm Springs on the cheap just like old times.
To say that everything goes wrong is an understatement. A broken AC in their rental apartment, a flat tire in the desert, and a drained swimming pool are just the start of their problems. Poppy wants them to rekindle their “friendship,” but the entire charade feels like a creative exercise in self-torture for both of them.
I wanted to like this book but god, I did not like Poppy. She describes herself as the annoying little sister to Alex’s stoic dad persona and that straight up sounds like my nightmare. I have traveled with people like this before and something about her attitude and neediness set my teeth on edge. She wears polyester bellbottoms and teases her hair into a beehive! She is tiny, but powerful! She is also helpless and disorganized and is unhappy in her own high-end apartment in New York with her dream job and her supportive family and her tens of thousands of followers on social media.
This is my first Emily Henry book. While the jokes are funny, it was hard for me to enjoy them because of Poppy’s personality. It didn’t help that Alex functions as her pseudo-parent and emotional doormat. I want to read another book by this author but god, please give me one with a likeable main character.