🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.4/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Happy Place yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
A couple that broke up five months ago hasn’t told any of their friends. They’re about to spend a week together at their friend group’s beloved cottage in Maine, the last week before it’s sold, pretending to still be together. It’s a solid premise, I guess, but getting through the first quarter requires patience and willpower. The second half makes it completely worth it.
The Full Story – Spoilers Included
The Secret
Harriet and Wyn have been the “golden couple” of their tight-knit friend group for over a decade. Balanced, devoted, the kind of couple everyone points to and wants. And then, 5 months ago, Wyn broke up with her over the phone and they haven’t told a single person. Not even a single on of their closest friends.
This bothers me. I just don’t get why everything has to be a secret. If Harriet’s friends are as close to her as she says they are, then this would all be a very uncomfortable conversation to avoid. And right now, I’m having a hard time getting into the story because the premise isn’t holding up for me.
Hariett arrives at the cottage expecting Wyn to have skipped this year, because that was their deal. But he is there and he’s already unpacked. Their friends, thinking they’re doing something wonderful, have guilted Wyn into coming even after he said he couldn’t. Sabrina and Parth, who are finally getting married after years of being together, wanted everyone together for one last week at the cottage before it’s sold. And for some reason Harriet and Wyn are tricked into sharing the master bedroom, which has not ever been their usual arrangement and now they have to pretend everything is fine, while sleeping in the same bed.
Hariett is not fine. She is heartbroken and furious and doing everything she can to not deal with any of it.
What Actually Happened
The book skips back and forth between the present week and flashbacks tracking their relationship from the beginning. The electric first meeting, the years of genuine devotion, and then the slow unraveling.
The funny thing in what pulled them apart wasn’t a lack of love. His Dad had died, Wyn had fallen into a deep depression. He felt directionless and inadequate next to Harriet’s surgical residency. So he convinced himself he was holding her back. Then he needed to go take care of his mom because she was sick. Harriet, a chronic people-pleaser who avoids conflict at almost any cost, stopped expressing what she needed and let him pull away rather than fighting for them. When Wyn broke up with her, it was less a decision and more a desperate act of self-preservation — the distance between their lives had started to feel insurmountable.
He drops small hints throughout the week that he still loves her. Wyn has started a furniture-making business in Montana. He tells her he is on antidepressants. He’s building something real — he just did it without her.
Everyone Has Secrets
It turns out Harriet and Wyn aren’t the only ones keeping things from each other. One of their friends is pregnant. Everyone in this group has been performing a version of fine that isn’t entirely true, and the cottage week becomes the thing that finally cracks it all open.
The blow-up happens the day before the wedding. Everything comes out — including the fact that Sabrina, the bride, already knew Harriet and Wyn had broken up and orchestrated the whole week partly to push them back together. It’s worked to a point. They’ve been hooking up again, have talked some things through, but they’re not back together yet.
Harriet finally admits out loud that she hates her residency. She pursued surgery for her parents, not herself. She asks if she can come to Montana with Wyn. But he tells her she’d just be doing what he did — following someone else’s life instead of her own. Neither of them would be happy that way.
Upset, Hariett leaves without saying goodbye. But then he turns up at the airport.
She tells him he doesn’t get to make decisions for her. That she gets to decide what’s best for her. And what’s best for her is them.
He tells her that when he woke up and the bed was cold, he would have done anything to bring her back. He came to the airport, and if she hadn’t come out he would have bought a ticket and gotten on the plane. There is nowhere he wouldn’t go for her.
She withdraws from her residency and she moves to Montana and takes a job at a pottery studio because it makes her happy.
Best Part of This Book
The day before the wedding when everything comes out — all of it, from everyone, at once. That is the exact moment the book stops being frustrating and starts being genuinely good.
Worst Part of This Book
The secrecy premise and the slow start were the worst parts. They drove me crazy! Both times it took real willpower to keep listening through the first half. I genuinely feel that if your friends are the most important people in your life, the idea that you’d let five months pass without telling them your relationship ended doesn’t add up. And the book asks you to accept that logic as the foundation for everything else happening.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥 — Low heat.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied with the ending specifically. The airport scene works to tie everything together. Harriet chooses herself by leaving a career that was making her miserable. Instead she takes a job at a pottery studio in Montana. This feels like the right resolution for a character who has spent the whole book doing what everyone else needed from her.
Would I Reread It?
Yes! I reread it for this review. Both times the second half made the slow first half worth it.
Who Is This For
This is a solid beach read or listen for anyone who loves second chance romance and doesn’t mind a slow build. Emily Henry fans who loved Beach Read or People We Meet on Vacation will feel at home here.
Where to Get
📖 Physical Book
Amazon | Bookshop.org
📱 Ebook
Amazon | Bookshop.org
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