Revisiting Beach Read

And dissecting the Emily Henry phenomenon

Four years ago, in the depths of a pandemic spring, Emily Henry’s Beach Read was the feel-good book of the moment. It was a massive hit both among seasoned romance readers and newbies to the genre. It launched the Emily Henry juggernaut that shows no sign of stopping anytime soon, complete with multiple film adaptations in the works. There’s even a deluxe Beach Read edition set to be released this fall. So four years after first reading the book that started it all, I wanted to come back to it and see if I could puzzle out exactly what launched Henry into the stratosphere.

Of course, we have to talk about the timing. In a wildly uncertain time in human history, a lot of us reached for books with a guaranteed happy ending. But the crucial thing about Beach Read, in my opinion, is how deftly it blends the sparkling banter between its protagonists with heightened emotional stakes. There’s a serious secondary plot focused on our heroine January mourning her father, and struggling with the fact that he had an affair, as well as her love interest Gus’ own painful past. These characters make it through just enough hard things to make the happy ending all the more satisfying, in a time when we all really wanted to know that we could make it through hard things. There’d been plenty of romance novels dealing with weightier topics before Beach Read but it was the first one to be a huge hit, to the point where a lot of people still think of it as the first of its kind. It arguably elevated romance in the popular consciousness and elevated its author right along with it.

One of the cleverest things about Beach Read is also the case it makes for its genre. Romance plays a huge role in January’s life and she’s consistently advocating for it to Gus and to the reader, challenging them to question why the promise of a happy ending automatically makes a piece of fiction lesser. There’s some truly lovely lines about the refuge romance became during her mother’s battle with cancer and about the joy January finds in crafting swoony scenes for her readers. It feels like the book is gently reassuring its readers that it’s okay to read and love romance and I think that permission is another factor in how huge this book was. Like The Wedding Date and The Kiss Quotient in 2018, Beach Read was a key that unlocked the genre for many readers.

The meta elements and reflections on the creative process remain one of my favorite things about the book. However, on this reread, I found myself wishing that Henry had pushed a little further. The books that January writes are technically women’s fiction with strong romantic elements. All contemporary, all realistic, no “love-struck pirates or love struck werewolves”, as Gus quips, in sight. Basically she writes the most mainstream version of romance, a bit like Henry herself. I couldn’t help but wonder what this book might have been like if January wrote gloriously tropey historical romances or sexy paranormals, or even if it delved a bit deeper into how weird and wonderful romance can be. (I love a pirate romance and need more in my life. Justice for the pirates.) I’m also curious to see if Henry, monumentally successful as she is, pushes the boundaries of the genre or of what a mainstream romance looks like in future releases.

I don’t remember much about my first experience with Beach Read, partially because of the hazy and panicky time I read it in and partially because both Book Lovers and People We Meet on Vacation loom larger in my personal Emily Henry canon. This time around, I found myself with a new appreciation for the sense of setting and the witty dialogue but I also approached it with a more analytical eye. This is undeniably an influential and important book in recent romance history but it almost feels more important for the effect it had than what it is. I see its influence in the rise of single-POV romance novels, in the number of books that focus on writers or include meta elements, in the books that would have been marketed as women’s fiction or chick lit ten years ago and are sold as romance today, and even in the open door yet ultimately modest approach to steamy scenes that it helped make a lot more common.

To be clear, I think Beach Read is a well-written, charming, emotional read. But rereading it didn’t give me the same feeling of sheer elation or excitement about where the genre’s going as, for example, rereading The Kiss Quotient did. Some of that’s just personal taste. Some of that may have been that I came in with high expectations. Some of that’s likely also due to the fact that I’ve gotten increasingly skeptical of the attitude that puts Henry in her own class of romance writers, when there are so many authors with wonderful line-level prose and doing interesting things in the genre. I think there’s room to celebrate all of them.

To me, what Beach Read ultimately became is an act of alchemy. The right book, complete with clever commentary on the genre and banter reminiscent of the golden age of rom-coms. The right time, after 2018 brought romance into the mainstream literary conversation in a new way, and during a period when we were all stuck inside and yearning for an escape. And the right readers, ready to embrace romance like never before.

Let me know your Emily Henry thoughts, feelings, and personal rankings!

---

Currently reading: Can I Steal You for a Second? by Jodi McAlister, a romance set on a Bachelor-esque show about two female contestants that end up falling for each other. I read the first installment in the series earlier this month and really enjoyed McAlister’s smart yet affectionate send up of the Bachelor universe.

Recommendations, miscellany, and little bits of joy:

• Water for Elephants on Broadway, which I saw with a friend earlier this week. It’s heartfelt, captivating, and so creatively staged. The way that it incorporates circus acts and skills was especially stunning.

• Don’t Forget Me, the new Maggie Rogers album that’s made its way into my album rotation. I love the texture of her voice and the reflective nature of her songwriting. (I still have a few songs left on The Tortured Poets Department but rest assured, I will have so many thoughts next week.)

• Vulture’s Cinematrix game, where at long last my comprehensive knowledge of 2000’s romantic comedies can prove its usefulness.