🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 4/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read People We Meet on Vacation yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
Poppy and Alex have been best friends for nearly a decade. Every summer, no matter what, they take one trip together. Two years ago something happened in Croatia and they haven’t spoken since. This book is about all of it, jumping back and forth between every summer that led to that moment and the Palm Springs trip Poppy orchestrates to try and fix what broke.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
How They Met
Poppy and Alex shared a car ride home to their tiny Ohio hometown at the end of college. She is outgoing, colorful, a free spirit who wants to see everything. He is quiet, organized, a khakis-wearing English teacher who loves routine and peace. They became instant best friends anyway and made a deal: one trip together every summer, no matter what.
For nearly a decade they kept that deal. Budget backpacking through Europe. Road trips across the US. A water tour where the driver offered them tent space in his yard. A street vendor asking if a carved wooden bear statue spoke to them, which became a running joke for years.
Present Day
Two years of silence and Poppy is miserable. She has the job, the New York apartment, the passport full of stamps, and she is deeply unhappy. Someone asks her when she was genuinely last happy and she knows the answer immediately: the last trip with Alex.
She texts him. He responds. His brother is getting married and the ice breaks enough for her to suggest one more trip. He says yes. She books Palm Springs, tells her magazine they’re covering it even though they declined, and pays for it herself.
They meet at the airport and things are immediately awkward. The rental has one bed, no working air conditioning during a heat wave, and what was supposed to be a pool view turns out to be a wall of construction plastic. The landlord tells them to turn the AC down one degree at a time. They are in for a very long week.
The Flashbacks
The book jumps between the Palm Springs trip and every summer that came before it, and that’s where the real story lives.
On a Nashville trip Poppy’s mom sends her off with a giant box of sheepskin condoms because she assumes they’re sleeping together. They are not. On that same trip Poppy shares that she’s a virgin and Alex has had sex, and something about that conversation makes her realize she wants to kiss him.
He flies to her when she gets too sick to travel for one of their trips, just shows up at her door to take care of her because he couldn’t go on the trip knowing she was alone and barely functioning.
On a Tuscany trip with their respective partners Poppy has a pregnancy scare. It turns out to be nothing, but there’s a moment between her and Alex that says everything neither of them has said out loud yet.
Back in Palm Springs, Alex’s back goes into spasm and he sends her out for the day so she doesn’t have to sit around watching him be miserable. She comes back and sees a job posting open on his laptop for a position in New York. He admits he’s waiting to see what happens with Sarah, his on-and-off ex. Poppy doesn’t like Sarah and definitely doesn’t like this information. She offers to help him revamp his Tinder profile.
Then it starts raining. She cuts the plastic off the balcony. Somehow they end up making out and then having sex, and during it she tells him she loves him and he tells her he loves her.
The Croatia Reveal
The thing that broke them happened exactly the way you’d expect: they got drunk, made out, Poppy wanted to keep going, Alex stopped them because he thought she wasn’t over her recent breakup. She played it off like she was fine. And then they just stopped talking because neither of them knew how to come back from it.
The Engagement Party
At Alex’s brother’s engagement party, a comment from the brother tips Poppy off that Alex had been planning to propose to Sarah. She confronts him. He confirms it. And then he tells her that when Poppy had her pregnancy scare on the Tuscany trip, it scared him so badly he got a vasectomy without even telling Sarah. He has been in love with Poppy for years. He just hasn’t known what to do about it.
Poppy finally admits she’s the one who paid for the Palm Springs trip because the magazine said no. Alex gets upset about the circumstances around how she explained it and has to leave to catch his flight. Things end badly again.
The Ending
Poppy is lost. Alex won’t answer her. She runs into her old bully on the train and he apologizes to her, which gives her the clarity she needed. She decides she needs to quit her job. She flies home to Ohio and goes to his school. Can’t get in. Sarah sees her outside and they talk, and Sarah, who is genuinely decent about the whole thing, tells her where to find Alex.
Poppy shows up and goes for the grand gesture. He turns her down. She leaves. He runs after her and tells her his therapist thinks he is afraid of being happy. They make up. He moves to New York with her.
Best Part of This Book
The flashback structure. Watching each summer build toward something neither of them would name out loud is what makes the payoff work. The wooden bear running joke. Him showing up when she was sick. All of it.
Worst Part of This Book
The vasectomy reveal. It’s meant to show the depth of his feelings but it reads as a significant decision he made unilaterally, without telling his actual girlfriend at the time, based on feelings he hadn’t even admitted to himself. It’s the one beat that didn’t land cleanly for me.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥 — Low heat. The emotional tension carries this book far more than anything physical. The romance is slow, quiet, and built over a decade of friendship.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied. The therapist line is a good one and feels true to who Alex is. Him running after her rather than letting her walk away a second time is the moment this book was building toward.
Would I Reread It?
Yes.
Who Is This For
Anyone who loves a slow burn friends-to-lovers story told across a decade of small moments. Emily Henry fans who want the emotional depth without a lot of steam. Readers who enjoy dual timelines done well. A good beach read or listen that earns its ending.
Where to Get
📖 Physical Book
Amazon | Bookshop.org
📱 Ebook
Amazon
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