Review: Happy Place

my review of Emily Henry's latest novel

I think a large part of finding a good book isn’t necessarily about the book itself, but when you find it. This has always been true for me, as some of my favorite pieces of art always pull me back to a certain time, place, or moment in my life, and that feeling of being drawn to a landscape so different from the present one is what keeps me (and most people) coming back for more. 

A good example of this is Folklore by Taylor Swift, a pandemic phenomenon that won a Grammy for Album of the Year. I had never really listened to indie music before, and I remember pressing play at midnight and being completely taken aback by what I was hearing. Days felt long and boredom and anxiety ran like an undercurrent as we all quarantined. I listened to it while walking around my neighborhood, laying in bed on a restless afternoon, cooking breakfast in the morning. The stories of this world stuck with me, inspired me, made me love writing even more. When I go back to this album, I appreciate it in a new way every time. 

But this isn’t about Folklore (although maybe I’ll write a whole thing about that one day), it’s about Happy Place by Emily Henry! As promised, it was my next read after People We Meet on Vacation, which surprisingly disappointed me and I could not finish it. At this point in time, Henry’s fourth novel has been out for months and as I scrolled on Tiktok, I was bombarded with reviews of the novel saying that it fell short, seemed underdeveloped, and stood at the bottom of most rankings. I should know by now not to bet on rankings entirely when it comes to a novel, but it definitely stayed in the back of my mind as I read. In Henry’s recent newsletter (where she announced her upcoming novel!), she herself described “Writing Happy Place, as much as I love it, felt like the burning feeling of holding your breath underwater as long as you can. It wrung me out. And when I finally turned it over, let it go from me being mine and ours, I needed something that would fill me back up.”

I picked up Happy Place on a road trip to Philadelphia where I was getting my passport renewed for a vacation that I was going on in less than a week. So I was incredibly nervous and had been through a whirlwind past few days, calling the national hotline over and over again, trying to find an appointment near me and as early as possible. It was a lot of back and forth, hoping and wondering. I’m one of those people who always need to be doing something, so I downloaded a couple of playlists and podcasts, and brought the book just in case. I started reading in the Passport Agency, waiting for my assigned number to be called.

I finished the novel on my way back the following Monday, with a renewed passport in the backseat and an iced coffee in the cupholder to my right, a complete 180 from where I started. 

And I really think all of this contributed to my review of Happy Place by Emily Henry, and where it stands in my ranking of her novels: at #2. Of course, rankings are subject to change, and they're not entirely accurate, because there are things that I love individually about each novel, so it’s impossible to create a definitive list that puts a number on it. I guess you could say that I’m making a case for it, in a way.

The “will-they-or-won’t-they” energy is something that Henry is so good at writing, and contrastingly,  that’s what I found to be dull about People We Meet on Vacation - it didn’t work. But here, it did, beautifully. It started with an existing tension between Harriet and Wyn, our two main protagonists, and that helped me along because I knew from before that her books tend to be slow for a good first portion (or at least that's how it feels to me), so I definitely enjoyed the fact that the foundation was already laid, the game already existed, and we just had to see how their characters would play it. Their pushing and pulling was realistic, even though at times I wished they would outright deal with it sooner. 

The case that a lot of people were making in favor of this book specifically, was that if you were “a Harriet”, then you would like it, otherwise you just wouldn’t get it. I completely disagree. I think that having relatable characters is an emotional and insightful experience, but it doesn’t have to be this way for it to be a great book. When this becomes the norm, we subconsciously expect this from what we read, and conform to it instead of challenging it. I loved Harriet and Wyn, but I am neither a Harriet nor am I attracted to the Wyns of the world. For context, Harriet is described as a resident in neurosurgery who tends to be a people pleaser, overachiever, and constantly puts aside what she wants in favor of others. Could I see bits and pieces of myself in her? Yes. But I’d say that overall, we’re largely different and that did not take away from my reading experience. I really felt like I was in her head, dealing with her anxieties and conflicting feelings, and despite Wyn not being my type at all, I could see what she saw in him perfectly clearly, and that’s how I know her point of view was written so well. I love the way Henry turns these characters over, giving us this rich three dimensional experience of a person, of two people, without it overpowering the plot. 

I will say that I appreciated the backdrop of her friend group and the week-long vacation in Maine, but I can see the criticism of them not being fully fleshed out. I personally didn’t mind - I knew that we were mainly going to be following the story of Harriet and Wyn, and that their friends were important characters but didn’t necessarily need to be at the forefront that often. Their stories were introduced, followed through, and ended, and that was enough for me - although I did feel like Parth’s character was a bit…flat. We knew that he was a popular, smart, good looking guy engaged to Sabrina, but what made him him? What drew him and Wyn together in college? I wish that was answered in the novel, but it’s a small gripe in comparison to what I found to be successful. I was also left wondering why Harriet dropped medicine altogether, and what about the thousands of dollars in loans? It was a great lesson, but not very realistic in my opinion. 

Romance is an integral aspect of the novel, but it feels more like a coming-of-age story, and I loved that about it. As I was going through a rollercoaster of a week myself, I resonated with Harriet’s big-picture questions, angst about adulthood, and fear of the things and people she loved most drifting away from her. There were these threads of wisdom woven throughout that made me tear up: about how love changes shape but remains constant throughout time, how it’s never too late to ask for what we want and deserve, how we will never truly know if the scary, risky decisions we make will lead us to a safe outcome, only that we have to try anyway. 

Overall, I loved the novel, and I think that it’s one I’ll return to again in the future (maybe when I’m in my 30’s and on a vacation with my best friends from college. You know, for the full experience). Also, why am I just finding out that Knott’s Harbor is a fictional place?