Welcome to the Jordan Tailored Book Club! I have been dreaming of doing this for years, and I finally just decided to go for it this summer! Reading is fun and all, but reading in community is what truly makes reading joyful. We have the shared experience of reading something together and then getting to connect over what we loved, didn’t love, and everything in between. My hope for this mini book club is that we get to read wonderful books and connect with new friends!
In June, we decided to read People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry – I also included this book in my Summer Reading Guide, so I was thrilled to be able to check it off my list, too!
Goodreads Synopsis:
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has an insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.
Sounds amazing, right?!
Stay tuned for spoilers ahead – if you haven’t read the book yet, now is the time to stop and pick it up so you can come back and share your thoughts with us, too!
Now let’s get started! Answer any/all of the questions below with your thoughts and then start responding to others
Discussion Questions:
1. What was your very favorite part of this book?
2. Did you have a least favorite part? Maybe it was an unexpected or hard-to-believe plot point?
3. When they first meet, Alex and Poppy are immediately put off by each other – have you ever made a friend after a bad impression?
4. Which of Poppy and Alex’s vacations would you most like to tag along for? Was there one that you’d rather pass on?
5. What’s something you do on vacation that you’re unlikely to do in daily life? Is there a certain comfort in anonymity?
6. What’s your worst vacation memory?
7. Why do you think it took so long for Poppy and Alex to finally express their feelings for one another?
8. What did you think about the ending? Are Poppy and Alex in it for the long haul? Will they stay in New York or eventually move back full time to Ohio?
1. I loved this book!!! I think my favorite part was the quick banter that Henry had going between Poppy and Alex throughout the whole book. I loved the inside jokes that they carried over from vacation to vacation and their smart humor together.
2. My least favorite part might’ve been just the frustration of knowing as a reader how they felt about each other but they wouldn’t say anything! That drives me crazy in books/movies. And when Poppy finally did confess her love to him in front of everyone at the bar, I didn’t love how he reacted so poorly (even though I know he chased after her, I just wish he would’ve accepted her right then and there).
3. I just had dinner with a friend last weekend and we were talking about how the first time we met, we were both intimidated by each other for whatever reason. I don’t think I’ve ever just had a terrible first impression of anyone that turned into a strong friendship.
4. Palm Springs (minus the heat) and anything warm and tropical. I would probably pass on the Colorado vacation solely for the experience of camping in a yard full of nomads lol. No thank you!
5. Vacation comes with this sense of non-reality, so it almost feels like anything goes! You can get all dolled up to go out to a hole in the wall restaurant and no one cares. You can never dry your hair or put on makeup and no one cares. There’s a sense of freedom on vacations that you can be and do whatever you want to.
6. Any bad memories I have from travels usually stem from literal travel situations rather than anything to do with the people I’m with. Last summer we went to the beach and got stuck in a hurricane – the beach was closed the entire time, our flights got cancelled, and we had to rent a car and drive home.
7. I think they were both afraid of rocking the boat on what was a really amazing friendship which makes sense, but they missed out on so much time!
8. I wish there had been a little epilogue telling us exactly what happened to Poppy and Alex in the end. I loved the scene of her going back and confessing her love to him in front of everyone, and that alone made me feel like maybe they’ll move back to OH at some point? But who knows, they could end up anywhere with their love for travel.