BLOG TOUR: Book Lovers Review

Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Publication Date: May 3, 2022

TW:anxiety, death of a parent, grief
CW: hospital visit

This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it did not miss. I’ve gone into all of Emily Henry’s books with low expectations, Beach Read because I hadn’t read from her before, People We Meet on Vacation because I loved Beach Read so much, and this one…well because I loved the other two so much. I rarely preorder books I have not read, but I preordered this one way back in January!!

See my reviews for Beach Read here and People We Meet on Vacation here.

But, Ms. Emily Henry won me over in the first chapter and I read the first 20% in one sitting. I would have read the whole thing at once, but I started reading it at 10pm and I to go to work the next day (the audacity!). I then spent the whole day at working wanting to go home just so I could finish this.

This year I’ve read a lot of good books, but I haven’t been getting sucked into books the way I like to (getting so absorbed into the story that you don’t want to stop reading and staying up way too late reading the stories). The irony is two books did this for me almost back to back. Maggie Moves On by Lucy Score was engaging and immersive and so was BOOK LOVERS.

I don’t want to give away much of the plot, but we follow Nora (single POV) a ruthless literary agent who is dragged to a small town by her sister. They are in town for less than a day when Nora runs into Charlie, a book editor she works in close proximity to and who she had a rough business lunch with a few years ago.

So all you really need to know about this one is that I LOVED IT SO MUCH and gave it an easy five stars. But, if you want more specifics keep reading.

WHAT I LOVED 

• I am a sucker for two characters who have always felt different from other people and then find each other and then get each other in a way they feel no one else does. That’s what Nora and Charlie are to each other.
  • Emily Henry is able to write their banter in a way that shows this perfectly.
  • Did I think they were both a little too witty? Yeah sure, but this is fiction and it made me smile so I don’t care
  • Charlie tells Nora she isn’t alone at one part and I swooned.
• I love a book with a to do list or a check list and Nora has big Virgo energy in trying to complete it.
• This is such an ode to book lovers and a love letter to books in general. Nora and Charlie work in books so they are talking about tropes and endings and all that jazz.
  • Plus so many authors and books are mentioned and it’s grand.
  • Just Nora and her family’s love of books was so sweet and heartwarming.
• This book hit me in the feels in a way that I did not expect and I ended up crying for the last 15% of the novel lol.
• The Beach Read references!!!
• I adored Nora’s relationship with her sister and how strong their relationship is. Seeing it grow and change is one of the reasons I cried so hard I couldn’t see my kindle anymore.
• I loved Charlie so much as a love interest. I would have loved to see his POV but the story that EH is telling really works with Nora’s POV…I just loved him so much.
• My heart hurt for these two so much!! I didn’t know how everything was going to work out for them and I just !!! such good suffering.
• I loved the familial themes too.
• I liked that Nora was tall lol.

WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE

• Honestly nothing standout here are three very minor comments I have on that front.
• I did think parts of this were a bit similar to her prior adult romances, but it did not bother me because I loved them.
• EH also walks the line of being critical of romance novels or just poking good ole fun at them which always feels a bit weird to me since she is writing romance.
• I would have liked the plot line with the book about Nora to be examined a bit more, but also it didn’t matter because it doesn’t matter to Nora at the end.

5/5 stars obvi

*thank you so much to the publisher for the eARC and for inviting me to do a blog tour with y’all! All thoughts are my own*

xoxo, Tree