Happy Place

 

Happy Place by Emily Henry (2023) 400 pages

Harriet, a surgical resident working in San Francisco is thrown into an extremely difficult situation in her very favorite happy place: a gorgeous mansion in Maine she has spent with her best friends and significant others since their college days. She arrives to find her ex-fiance is waiting for her at the beach house. Her friends announce that because this is the last year they will be able to use the house, as it will be sold, they wanted to have a final-hurrah with everyone in the same place. Harriet's friends do not know that her and Wyn, her ex have broken up for the past 5 months. Not only that, she hasn't even seen or talked to Wyn in the last several months as she blocked his phone number because it was too difficult. Most of this book is diving into the previous "happy places" spent during the various relationships: the girls during their college years, and various apartments and places where Harriet and Wyn have lived. The rest of the book bounces back in time and present day, where in private Harriet and Wyn struggle with picking up the pieces and trying to figure out where everything went wrong. It was a fairly good read, but I was under the impression it would be a much lighter-content beach style of read, but it was actually pretty emotionally heavy!