Happy Place by Emily Henry Review

Hey ForeverBookers,

How are you all doing? I hope you’re well. 

Last night, I finished “Happy Place,” by Emily Henry and I really enjoyed it. It’s been on my summer TBR for a few years and I just haven’t gotten to it. Now I have :). 

4 Stars!

“Happy Place” tells the story of Harriet and Wyn, two individuals that are meant to be in love and to their friends, still are. However, they know that they’ve been on a break for a few months before the story starts. Why? What caused the rift between the two main characters? I’ll let you read for yourself but I enjoyed it, especially the second half of the novel, that I basically read in a day! When Harriet and Wyn have to come back together to celebrate the engagement and wedding of two of their best friends at the cottage they once all shared harmoniously can they keep the secret of them splitting up? Or do they tell everyone by mistake? I’ll let you read for yourself. 

I read “Happy Place” for a few readathons. They were: 

 

Reading Rivalry - Forward - I took this as meaning a popular book. Happy Place was very popular when it released! 

Read the Rainbow Challenge - Pink - I’ve done more than one book for this prompt but this is the most pink book I own! 

Spoilers Below…

“The next fifteen minutes are scheduled for relaxing before lunch,” he says, “so I’ll leave you to it.”

I nod.

He nods.

He moves toward the door, hesitates there for a second.

And then he’s gone, and I’m still frozen where he left me. I do not relax.”

Harriet and Wyn have been put in the double bedroom for this trip to the cottage. They normally get the kids’ room with the beds that can be pushed together. This time, when they’re not in a relationship anymore they get thrown together. As I wrote above, their friends who are on this holiday with them don’t know that they’ve split up. You can tell how awkward both Wyn and Harriet find this in the quote above as both characters hesitate. Harriet can’t relax. 

“She called me with a speech. About how this was the end of an era. About how she’d never asked me for anything and she never would again. I tried calling you. It only rang once, but I left a voicemail.”

There was a very good reason I hadn’t gotten the message.

“I blocked your number,” I say. I got tired of lying awake late into the night with my thumb hovering over his contact number, practically aching from wishing he’d call, tell me the whole thing had been a mistake. I needed to take the possibility away, to free myself from waiting for it.” This is what happened to Wyn, why he came on the trip to see everyone. Harriet didn’t want to see or talk to Wyn after their break up so she blocked his number!

As the plot progresses, the first half was really more of this avoiding each other but not being able to quite succeed in that. I found this boring after a few times. I liked the part where Harriet and Wyn were stuck in the cellar of the cottage. This meant they couldn’t avoid each other.  

Harriet is an up and coming surgeon, or that’s what she wants to be at the beginning of “Happy Place.” That’s what’s most important to her. Do her priorities change? Does being back with Wyn make her see her life differently. Her parents are very keen on her staying as a doctor. 

In the second half, we see Harriet and Wyn start to work together. 

“It doesn’t matter that I never got concrete answers about what broke us. What matters is that we broke. What matters is that Wyn’s happy with his new life.

We’ll make it through tomorrow, then go our separate ways. When we tell everyone we’ve broken up, we’ll be able to say it was amicable, that it won’t cost them anything. 

But I can’t let it go.

I’ve been trying for months, and I’m no closer to peace. Here’s my opportunity—my last chance. It might be a mistake to get answers, but if I don’t, I’ll spend my life regretting it.

This is what I need from this week, the thing that will justify the torture.” 

All Harriet wants is answers, at first. Here, about 100 pages from the end of the book she’s no longer bothered about the answers. She just wants to understand what happened between her and Wyn! Her career took too much time but Wyn also had depression that she learns about over his father’s death. I was interested in this too. It added another complexity to the plot. 

Overall, then I really enjoyed “Happy Place.” It focused on reconciliation, rather than the split of the couple. We can see that Harriet clearly still loves Wyn. She blames him at first for their breakup, without knowing that he had depression, but she also learns that it was as much her that was at fault. I’m therefore giving “Happy Place” 4 stars! It was nice to read about a couple working through their issues, rather than just going through them.

I’m rereading another book next but I didn’t review it so I’ll of course review it when I’m done (I LOVED it last time I read it, though)!