As the pandemic continues, I have found it very difficult to focus on tasks, no matter how small they are. Due to online schooling, I’ve noticed a decline in my engagement in my hobbies as most of time is taken over by papers, exams, and assignments that are just not feasible to do in one night. As I grow closer and closer to the home stretch, I feel some of that weight being lifted off my shoulder momentarily, but I know that finals week is always somewhere out there, looming over the horizon. The current situation of life forces us to not consider our mental health, and it’s understandable if you’ve felt the same way. For me, breaking out of this hazy headspace, even for just a few hours, was reading Emily Henry’s New York Times Bestseller: Beach Read.
From the title, you may assume it’s another one of those cheesy romances that people read to escape their unforgiving reality. While there are elements of romance in the novel, there are a lot of themes that I find relatable to current life that project to be bigger than the romance between any two characters. January Andrews is a writer who has moved into her late father’s beach house in a small town, and she’s struggling to write her next novel as the deadline inches closer and closer. While her agent is understanding, being a writer is January’s career and she depends on the money. The more she procrastinates on her project, the more broke she becomes. January deals with a lot of mental health issues as she grieves her father’s death and learns things about his life that makes her suspect he wasn’t the truthful man she always looked up to. The novel focuses on the shadows of seemingly perfect relationships and the realization that nothing is ever permanent or perfect.
The deuteragonist is Gus Everett, January’s neighbor, who is also a writer. It’s not January’s first time meeting him as they were rivals in college and always critiqued each other’s work, sometimes very scathingly. They’re vastly different writers; January primarily writes happy-ever-afters while Gus writes cynical thrillers that he spends months researching for. The content they write should give you an idea as to what types of people they are.
January forms an aversion towards Gus immediately after meeting him many years later, however, they both soon realize they differ from their previous selves, and their experiences between college and the present day have affected them in ways that seem impossible to heal from. Gus contributes to the themes of loss and family, and as the story progresses, readers learn why he’s so cold to relationships. He’s grown to be an isolated, skeptical man, yet he feels no need to change this. He believes that this is how the world goes. There are no happy-ever-afters.
Although the two characters have their own personal stormy clouds above their heads, the rest of the town they live in is the epitome of cheerfulness. Overall, it has a Schitt’s Creek vibe and it’s very delicately written to counter the turmoils Gus and January face. Henry creates a powerful distinction between the two worlds in the book. She explains the fear of being stuck in one place as the world around you continues to progress, and I believe that a lot of us understand this feeling, especially these days. The book demonstrates that while happy-ever-afters can be rare, there are many moments in life to cherish, which are called the happy-for-nows. The purpose is not to forget the past, but to take your time healing from it and then use that energy to invest in something important: your happiness.
This book is a perfect read for a bad day. There is romance that takes place in the form of the enemies-to-lovers trope, but it’s not unrealistic or cliché. Henry has done an excellent job writing this story and delving into personal struggles people face without romanticizing them. Buy a copy of Beach Read here!
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