Hi everyone! I'm trying to get ny friend into reading through EmHen (of course). She's tried Beach Read but isn't really gelling with it 💔. However, she's enjoying PWMOV especially Poppy and her dynamic with Alex. That being said, I was wondering if y'all have any recommendations for romances where the FMC is like Poppy (upbeat, positive, kind of loud). Thanks in advance!

Obviously it won’t be this one, but I am curious about yours!

Daphne - Alison Brie
Ashleigh - Mae Withman
Peter - Corey Mylchreest
Julia - Jennifer Carpenter
Mom - Jamie Lee Curtis
Dad - Bob Odenkirk
And Miles? Well that is changed based on how he was described first as Zach Galifianakis (haha, I know, I know), but later more like Taylor Lautner (I don’t like him) now I am picturing him as Will Sharpe. let’s say Tom Hopper! Who is your Miles?

There is currently a best book vote between Harry Potter 1 and The Hobbit. Guess what? The Hobbit is currently losing!! Help me vote for it so that it can surpass Harry Potter.

I'm looking for contemporary romance novels with writing style similar to Emily Henry.

I particularly love happy place and pwmov.

I really like the idea of lovers through the years, whether they're friends or past lovers who shared their life together.

I need banter, yearning, and a green flag of a male character. I need adults with real life problems, realistic talk and over all, well written.

I need it to make me feel things, can't stop reading, rip my heart out and mend it again.

The way I feel when listening to taylor swift honestly 😂

I've read all the classic recommendations like Abby Jimenez or carley fortune

Any hidden gems?

Rich.
Complicated.
And somehow, incredibly relatable.

During the earlier parts, I thought this was going to be just so-so. I figured I’d still enjoy it because I love the way Emily Henry writes her characters (they’re really lovable for me), but I wasn’t sure I’d love the plot. I thought it was going to be pretty mid.

I’m also not a fan of the miscommunication trope. I hate it. Hate it to my core. Haha!

But this one is done differently.

I loved the complexity of the characters. I didn’t necessarily agree with all of their choices, but I understood why they made them. They felt so fleshed out and real, and I loved that their decisions weren’t always simple or easy to understand.

And I enjoyed not just the characters, but the story itself. I loved how it might really just happen in real life. But, of course, what I loved most is the guaranteed happy ending. Another perfect escape!

This may be tied up with my rating for Funny Story: a solid 4/5.

I’m on an EmHen hype, enjoying RomCom and fluff before going back to Stephen King, whose books have become my natural habitat. 🤣

1. Happy Place
2. Funny Story
3. Book Lovers
4. GBBL
5. Beach Read
6. PWMOV

I need to do a re-read of Happy Place, since it was the first one I read, but I definitely remember sobbbbbing - miscommunication trope isn’t for everyone but I guess I like it! PWMOV didn’t really do much for me.
Most recently finished GBBL, and that can swap 3/4 with Book Lovers because I loved both of these. I know people didn’t feel like the romance was very strong in GBBL life, and I agree, but I actually loved the Margaret book plot so that’s what keeps it up there for me.

ive only read happy place and beach read but that was around a year and a half ago. i was planning to reread maybe but im also looking for what to read next

if its helpful to elements in other books, i enjoyed the silliness of happy place and the banter in beach read

this post is very random, it’s just an appreciation post..i wanted to say that what truly touches me about emhen’s books isn’t just that she writes two fully fleshed-out characters, each with their own wounds and struggles but that she absolutely nails my favorite sub-trope: when two broken people find solace in each other. when they become home for each other.

i think most, if not all, of her rom-coms are ultimately about characters who carry that quiet sadness the weight of the world on their shoulders despite how they might seem on the outside and who are looking for a sense of home, only to somehow find it in each other. and i love it every single time. it speaks to me.

so, for that reason i’m going to reread all of her rom-coms (excluding GBBL, i’m sorry 😭😭).

A couple of months ago, as I was finishing my last EmHen read and procrastinating on my actual research, I decided to scour this subreddit and collect as many rankings as possible. I collected 267 different rankings, then threw them into a spreadsheet, and calculated the average score for each book. I recently remembered that this existed and decided it might be worth sharing. So, here's the final ranking, along with each book's average score:

1. Funny Story (2.66)
2. Book Lovers (2.75)
3. Beach Read (2.96)
4. People We Meet On Vacation (3.62)
5. Happy Place (3.76)
6. Great Big Beautiful Life (4.29)

A quick note: many of the rankings were submitted before GBBL, so that's definitely a limitation to keep in mind. Books were scored on a scale of 1–6 (with 1 being the highest and 6 being the lowest). I also stupidly decided not to collect usernames, so there's a chance that if someone reshared their ranking multiple times, it may have been counted more than once.

Not claiming this to be rigorous research by any means, but it was a fun little project nonetheless. On that note, share your rankings—I'm oh so curious!!

Wrote this for Substack if anyone is interested 🥰

(Also preface: I come in peace and I swear I’m an Emily Henry fan…I am just this critical with everything I love lol)

I usually prefer books to movies. Emily Henry has been hit or miss for me, so I decided to watch this one instead of wasting 8 hours on a book. I enjoyed the movie and been hearing that the book is better (obviously). Do you recommend reading the book or will the magic be gone now that I know what happens?

No romance would be complete without the zany side characters nudging our leads together, or being a sounding board for them to confide their romantic woes to, while having their own background exploits.

I quite like Julia and Ashleigh from "Funny Story", since they felt like well developed, relatable people, who had problems and lives outside of Daphne and Miles.

Aunt Pete from "Beach Read", and her wife Maggie were fun characters as well, and I liked seeing a depiction of an older same sex couple, which was refreshingly normalized.

Libby's husband and daughters from "Book Lovers", and Charlie's mum and stepdad were all great characters, and I liked seeing them become a found family, and then in a literal sense.

Which supporting characters were your favourites?

Is anyone familiar enough with Saugatuck/Holland that there may be any Beach Read locales worth checking out? I have a Saugatuck trip coming up and read Beach Read awhile ago (a bit hazy) and hope to make it out to Holland as well if time allows, but especially curious about the book shop. TY! Got my North Bear Shores sweatshirt ready to represent!