ray &
Beach Read by Emily Henry
- Edition
- ISBN 9781984806734
Reviews
okay. sighs, she sits down on the couch and grabs a mic.
I have this theory, which states that you find certain people, objects, places, or even animals for a reason. And this book found me and wrecked my entire life. I had to take a break—can you believe that?
dramatics, I know.
But holy, this story is so beautiful and so human. Of course, there's romance and the gushy and good stuff. But there's also so much depth between these characters. Henry does an amazing job at making these circular panoramas with them. How their internal conflict impacts their external ones. Not only Gus and January but also their parents.
seeing how their perceptions of the world changed each other completely and helped them face what they were escaping from the very beginning.
I loved this story.
I loved that it was a tale of marriage, our perception of happiness, and our urgency to find comfort and an escape from the world's insane and dark circumstances of what we call life.
It's okay to hide under the current, but not too long before it drags you away into the abyss... yeah.
I think I had a lot to forgive the same way January did. It was truly an eye-opening experience I'll never forget.
10/10.
Great book and a quick easy read. I found myself falling in love with the characters quickly. The story line had me hooked because of how relatable to life it was. Not your typical romance book just a cute love stor 🌸🩷
It’s okay… maybe not my cup of tea.
No one compares you stand alone
about to be on my emily henry grind just u wait
i get it. i get the hype now. emily henry you have outdone yourself.
after i dnf book lovers (tragic i know, it just wasn’t my cup of tea) i decided to give miss henry one more shot. and little did i know i would be in for a rollercoaster ride of emotions.
firstly i would like to say how grateful i am for henry to write about young adults and navigating through trauma. both january and gus shed light on how their experiences transcend into the way they approach their budding romance as well as personal relationships. i believe a true writer makes you reflect on yourself and that’s exactly what henry does through gus and january.
not only that, she emphasizes happy ever after as “a strand of strung together happy for nows”. we see gus and january constantly searching for reasons as to why they feel a certain way or went through a certain thing and it made them feel miserable. but with time and understanding they were able to find a happy medium within each other where they feel loved and safe. as a person growing up in a world of uncertainty this makes me feel hopeful. the idea of loving someone and still being hurt by what they have done to you is so healing to hear. i love how henry had that as an underlying theme in her story.
side notes:
— BEACH TOWN VIBES? SOLD ! like anything coastal town related heals me
— BOTH CREATIVES WHO FOUND OUT ABOUT EACH OTHER THRU THEIR WRITINGS ?? MUAH ! miss henry let me kiss your brain
— GUS AND JANUARY WERE SO PATIENT AND GENTLE WITH EACH OTHERRR THEY HAD SO MANY MOMENTS THAT MADE MY HEART SWOON NEW COMFORT SHIP UNLOCKED !!
AMAZING!!! so good, Happy for Now
read it at the beach! perfectly fine romance -- i was invested in neither character and cared little for it all, but it was sweet. i can see myself forgetting what happened in this book the same way i did after i read henry's people we meet on vacation, but that's okay. i had okay fun.
if i don't see daisy edgar-jones and logan lerman as januarygus in the beach read movie i will riot
Some funny parts, I kind of like January, the main character. But as for the romance parts-> too cheesy or deja vu, I flipped / switched the pages.
sometimes i read a book and when i finish it i find myself completely stuck in an existential crisis for longer than i'd like to admit well, here i am
update: rereading this as my last book for 2023. i still love it a lot. __ "Maybe I wanted someone to understand I'm a complete person, and not just someone else's mistake." *** My first Emily Henry book! It was, overall, a pleasant reading experience. I love how it's a story about two book lovers—hence, reading this felt quite meta. I've seen so much people rave about the book online and how Gus is the perfect guy to exist. Truly, he is a gentleman—one that feels inherently decent and not just acting For the Sake of Character. Though, among all the books I've read, Levi from Rowell's Fangirl would still top my list. Can't wait to read Book Lovers next! 💛
BORING
Best book I’ve read all year! I’m a sucker for an enemies-to-more situation, and this book was no exception. The chemistry between January and Gus (as well as their friendship and rivalry) felt real and got me INVESTED. I read it over the course of two days and never wanted to put it down. The way it dealt with grief, denial, distraction, and other complicated feelings was very spot-on while not being upsetting. This was a delightful read and I am now going to check out all of Emily Henry’s other books!
I absolutely LOVED this book!! Kind of a slow build in the first couple of chapters but once I really got into in I could hardly put it down!! I would’ve finished it earlier if it was for my adulting responsibilities lol!! I would definitely recommend!!
3 for January Andrews and Augustus "Gus" Everett It's an okay read for me. I think my younger me would've given the book 4 stars because of the "Happy Ending"
3.5 My favourite part of the story is her dealing with her grief, slowly, throughout the book and beyond. I also liked how in the end she knew she could survive heartbreak and the other nasty things life could throw her way.
** spoiler alert ** This is the first Emily Henry book I've read and it didn't disappoint me, I loved JanuaryGus so much. They may be different in a lot of things, but one thing I've noticed that made them get along is their passion for writing. It made them closer and eventually fell in love with each other. I could somehow relate to January about losing motivation to do something you're passionate about because of losing someone you love or important to you, who inspired you in the first place. I cried the whole time I was reading January's Father's letters to her since she was born. It reminded me of the quote I've read in my favorite book, that you can love—the people who had done bad things to you, and still hold them responsible for what they did. Life is never black and white, they are gray areas. You can love someone and still see his faults. This book made me feel different emotions. For me, it's not just a Romance Book, it's also a story about Family, Friends, and Dreams. (I want my own Augustus Everett */umiyak.)
She wrote this book for me.
i’m a big gus fan
Highlights
I felt a little empty, a little light.
Happy. Not giddy or overjoyed, but that low, steady level of happiness that, in the best periods of life, rides underneath everything else, a buffer between you and the world you are walking over.
I know feeling small gets to some people, he had once told me, but I kind of like it. Takes the pressure off when you're just one life of six billion at any given moment. And when you're going through something hard-at the time, Mom was doing chemo-it's nice to know you're not even close to the only one.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t get enough of him. Or that he was the best man I’d ever known. (I’d thought that was my dad, but now it was the dad from my favorite 2000s teen drama, Veronica Mars.) Or that he was my favorite person. (That was Shadi.) Or because he made me laugh so hard I wept. (He laughed easily, but rarely joked.) Or that when something bad happened, he was the first person I wanted to call. (He wasn’t.)
It was that we met at the same age my parents had
this one had bit of a kick to it.
Now she worried those similarities betrayed the terrible wrongness that lived in her. Maybe she, like her father, was incapable of the love she’d spent her life chasing.
Or maybe that love simply didn’t exist.
She had no idea whether her father had actually loved That Woman. She didn’t know whether he’d loved her mother either. The three things she knew, without doubt, that he’d loved were books, boats, and January.
“ “God,” he said, voice deep, raspy.
I fought a smile. “Are you praying to me, Gus?”
when religion is used as an analogy for love and passion MUAH
“I tell people it's because I want to 'explore the reasons people stay, no matter the cost’ but the truth is I just want to understand her reasons. I know that doesn't make sense. This cult thing has nothing to do with her."
it makes so much sense ,,, who put this knife in my chest ?
This was meant to be the moment that I became the adult, hugging her tight, promising everything would be okay, taking her pain. That's what grown daughters did for their mothers. But back in the church, l'd torn in half and everything had spilled out of me into plain view for the first time.
ohhh ,,, my chest hurts
Now she worried those similarities betrayed the terrible wrongness that lived in her. Maybe she, like her father, was incapable of the love she'd spent her life chasing.
when a girl starts to think she’s like her father ,,, a canon event
“Just one more thing,” he said soberly.
“What?”
“Promise not to fall in love with me.”
“Oh my God!” I shoved his shoulder and flopped back into my seat, laughing. “Are you slightly misquoting A Walk to Remember at me?”
Gus cracked another smile. “Excellent movie,” he said. “Sorry, film.”
I rolled my eyes, still shivering with laughter.”
“It was the way he talked and moved, how he looked at things. Not, like, how he saw the world. Literally how he looked at things, his eyes seeming to darken and grow whenever he focused, his eyebrows furrowing over his dented nose.
Not to mention his crooked mouth, which should’ve been outlawed."
WOMEN.
WOMEN AND THEIR LITTLE DETAILS, ALLURE, AND THEIR LITTLE MAGIC TOUCH.
SOBBING EMOJI
“ I missed feeling that deep curiosity about people, that spark of excitement when you realized you had something in common or admiration when you uncovered a hidden talent or quality.
Sometimes, I just missed liking people.”
“Sorry, I imagined myself saying, I didn’t mean to transform into a crotchety grandmother. It’s just my dad died and then I found out he had a mistress and a second house and that my mom knew but never told me and she still won’t talk to me about any of it, and when I finally came apart, my boyfriend decided he didn’t love me anymore, and my career has stalled, and my best friend lives too far away, and PS this is the aforementioned Sex House, and I used to like parties but lately I don’t like anything, so please forgive my behavior and have a lovely evening. Thank you and good night.
Instead, that knife-twisting pain hit my gut, and tears stung the back of my nose, and my voice squeaked pathetically as I said to no one in particular, “I’m so tired.”
“The point is, I started telling myself a beautiful story about my life, about fate and the way things work out, and by twenty-eight years old, my story was perfect.
Perfect (cancer-free) parents who called several times a week, tipsy on wine or each other’s company. Perfect (spontaneous, multilingual, six foot three) boyfriend who worked in the ER and knew how to make coq au vin. Perfect shabby chic apartment in Queens. Perfect job writing romantic novels—inspired by perfect parents and perfect boyfriend—for Sandy Lowe Books.
Perfect life.”
It was the way he talked and moved, how he looked at things. Not, like, how he saw the world. Literally how he looked at things, his eyes seeming to darken and grow whenever he focused, his eyebrows furrowing over his dented nose.
augustus … you better not disappoint me.
“He fit so perfectly into the love story I'd imagined for myself that I mistook him for the love of my life.”
No one had chosen Gus. From the time he was a kid, no one had chosen him, and he was embarrassed by that, like it meant something about him. I wanted to tell him it didn’t. That it wasn’t because he was broken, but because everyone else was.
"I mean, your mom didn’t leave when your dad cheated on her, and my mom didn’t leave my dad when he broke my fucking arm, and yet I couldn’t do anything to make my wife stay.”
People were complicated. They weren't math problems; they were collections of feelings and decisions and dumb luck. The world was complicated too, not a beautifully hazy French film, but a disastrous, horrible mess, speckled with brilliance and love and meaning.
I wanted to know whether you could ever fully know someone. If knowing how they were—how they moved and spoke and the faces they made and the things they tried not to look at—amounted to knowing them. Or if knowing things about them—where they'd been born, all the people they'd been, who they'd loved, the worlds they'd come from—added up to anything.
