Happy Place by Emily Henry Book Review
“‘Everything good?’ she asks.
‘Of course it is,’ I insist, snuggling closer.
‘I’m in my happy place.'”
(pg. 64)
About
Author: Emily Henry
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Other Books By Emily Henry
The People We Meet on Vacation
Book Lovers
Synopsis
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?
Review
Spoilers Contained Below
To our happy places,
Go to your happy place.
Think about your happy place.
Common phrases people have used for centuries, and something that paints a different picture for everyone. A happy place can be physical—somewhere you feel the most comfortable, the safest, the most liberated. A happy place can be a fond memory—where you had your first kiss, where you met your best friend, where you felt the most accomplished. A happy place can be an idea—-a dream of traveling to an island where the sun persistently shines and you feel the salty breeze runnings its fingers through your hair. A happy place can be a person—who is your best friend, who feels like family, who makes you smile. But most importantly, as the name entitles, a happy place is a feeling—where, who, or what makes you feel the happiest.
In all these ways a happy place can be the most simple, yet the most complex thing ever. In all these ways, happiness itself can be the most simple, yet most complex emotion ever. Just like love.
I loved the way Emily Henry took this idea of what a happy place meant and explored the idea of it all throughout one of her best written books 💗.
I have read all of Emily Henry’s new adult books, and I must say, the most lyrically beautiful with the best prose so far is the Happy Place for its running theme and complex relationships. I also loved how much everyone could relate or at least take away something from the happy place. Because we all have a place, person, or idea that makes us happy—something we hold onto on the darkest, frustrating days. But what happens when that happy place is no longer happy? What happens if that person no longer makes you happy? What happens when the idea of what we had of happiness no longer brings us joy?
I never fully realized how complicated being happy could be.
It’s so weird though, you know, how you get older, the one thing most people want is to be happy. When we’re a kid, it feels like happiness is natural–being happy is engraved in what it means to be a kid. But then as you get older, it’s like that happiness slowly fades away, replaced by the complications of real life, and suddenly happiness becomes a distant memory we are all trying to get back to but don’t know how. I don’t even fully remember when I stopped being a child and stopped being fully happy all the time. It wasn’t until I was old enough to even say that when I grew up I wanted to be happy that I realized how jarring it was that something so rudimentary as happiness was what I craved so much. I can remember the first time I even thought that thought to myself, “I just want to be happy when I grow up.” I was in such a dark place, and it makes me think about how much empathy I have for adults who grow up losing their happiness to be in a dark place where happiness is what they want most.
Growing up is complicated and a painful journey that causes a lot of change. But there are moments of happiness in there, don’t get me wrong. Being an adult is just harder than I realized when I was younger and believed that every adult had it figured out and were “happy.”
So I liked how we explored what happiness meant to these adults who were all feeling like happiness was what they needed most in their life. It’s wild how much happiness and love are tied together, but do they need to exist with each other? I’m not too sure. I mean, you can be happy all on your own, but you are doing the things you love; love doesn’t need to be a person. In those respects, I do think being happy is tied to things you love.
Harriet didn’t grow up with a lot of love. Or she didn’t grow up feeling loved.
You can say the empty phrase of “I love you,” to someone, but that doesn’t mean that that person ever feels the “love’ you claim to. I don’t know. I just feel like sometimes people say they love you, especially blood-related family, and it’s just a phrase to say because you are expected to love your family. Because sometimes family doesn’t really love each other in their actions or words behind closed doors.
I don’t think Harriet ever felt loved by her family in the way she needed to. I do think her parents loved her, and maybe they threw out an “I love you,” once in a while, but I don’t believe she ever felt loved. She felt more like a burden because she knew how unhappy her parents were together and like it was her fault for them being together. Her parents didn’t have a whirlwind romance, but they were young and the mom got pregnant. The mom and dad fell into the typical nuclear family roles where the mom and dad got married eventually with their new baby and new house. But the parents were never happy. Sure, maybe they were happy for a little while because they had a baby, Eloise, who they could pour their love into, but after that, they weren’t truly happy.
It’s hard to see your parents not in love, and even harder to see them not happy. Not seeing your parents in love feels heartbreaking in the sense that the media used to always depict a happy family image and it felt like if your family wasn’t happy, your family wasn’t “normal.” As someone who grew up with parents who didn’t love each other, I understood where Harriet was coming from, and I understood how weird it felt to have a family that wasn’t normal. I always felt like something was wrong and I just wanted them to be perfect and happy together, but they never would. They never loved each other—they fell out of whatever form of love they had. And that hurt more. I don’t think people talk about how jarring it is to see your parents so indifferent or to hate each other and how much that effects you as a person growing up. Similar to Harriet, I never knew a healthy form of love growing up because my parents didn’t love each other. Sometimes I feel like do I even know what love feels like or what it looks like if I never grew up with it. And those thoughts can be absolutely invasive and those thoughts can make you question if you will ever find love. It’s hard. Or at least, that’s partially how I felt growing up.
It hurts to see your parents not happy.
I don’t know, it breaks your heart and makes your parents seem . . . dare I say it, human. To see your parents hurting or hurt—imperfect—-feels almost wrong. I wanted my parents to be happy because when they weren’t happy, the whole house wasn’t happy and you could feel it. I took on a lot of responsibility as a kid, thinking I had to make sure my family was happy because we weren’t a family, and maybe, just maybe if I made us happy, we could be a happy family. We never were. Unhappy parents makes for an unhappy family because if the leaders of a family are not in a healthy place, the family starts to follow that. That’s where kids act out, that’s where kids start to retreat, that’s where kids feel unsafe and we develop all these complicated emotions that shrouds the happiness we thought we were supposed to have as kids.
Kids become adults with their parents trauma that they have to unfold and process.
Kids become people like Harriet, Cleo, Sabrina, Eloise, and I.
Eloise acted out and barely talked to her sister. Harriet felt like she had to be an overachiever so her parents would feel proud of one of their children and like they would finally care about her because she was successful. I find it sad how much kids do things to get their parents attention—-good and bad—and don’t see how much their kids are hurting. Kids don’t act out without reason—they act for a reason. And that reason eventually shapes them.
And this is not to place any blame on Harriet’s parents because they were in a rough situation where they just fell into being parents and getting married without any real love between them, but I say all of this because our parents—-interactions with them and the interactions we see of them—greatly impact who we become. For Harriet, not seeing the love between her parents was harrowing, and I think a bit disappointing to realize how much her parents stayed in a relationship that made them so unhappy. I mean, yea, in her mind, why would you stay in a situation that makes you unhappy when everyone strives to be happy in life? I feel that.
But I feel like parents stay in unhappy situations because they feel trapped and like they would disappoint their family even more if they did want something else for themselves. I think they feel like it’s selfish to want to be happy when they have the family, the house, the kids—everything out of a “normal household life” that it feels wrong to not want that or want out of that. I think some parents also stay in unhappy situations because they don’t know anything better and they are scared of leaving that situation and still being unhappy, so they settle for a comfortable sense of unhappiness.
“‘When I was a kid,’ I say, ‘I always felt like I was balanced on the edge of something. Like everything was so . . . tenuous, and it would all crumble at any second.’
‘What could?’ he asked softly.
‘Everything,’ I say. ‘My family.’.”
(pg. 244)
As someone who grew up with parents who were unhappy together, I would just like to say I preferred it when my parents split up than be miserable together. When my parents divorced, it sure did hurt like willingly putting my hand on a burning hot stove and leaving it there for years. At least when my parents divorced, I didn’t feel so miserable—-that everyone felt so miserable. The fighting stopped, the worrying wasn’t as strong, and the impending storm warning bells ceased. Things weren’t good, but at least they weren’t worse because we already were in the worst—divorce. But I didn’t realize as a kid how much that divorce was the best thing to happen for my parents and my family because their misery caused so much pain to everyone that it was better that they weren’t together anymore.
So I understood Harriet’s almost-anger at her parents for not feeling any agency in their life to leave each other when they were so unhappy. Harriet would have these thoughts about how she would never be with someone she didn’t love and she would never let herself stay in an unhappy situation. Honestly, I completely respect and admire her perspective. I know in actuality, making those calls to stay or leave is absolutely more difficult than said, but I agree that I don’t think I would want to be with someone I didn’t love or stay in a situation I wasn’t happy in. Because I truly do think at the end of the day that you have to do what makes you happy, no matter how selfish others think you are bing, or how hard it is to walk away from something that is comfortable. Life is to precious and special to be spent being unhappy.
Now, I’m not saying go and cheat or do something malicious if it hurts someone else, but there are right ways to go about fighting for your happiness. And I say, fight for your happiness because it’s your life and it should be spent with more joy and love than feeling sorrowful or miserable because you feel stuck.
I don’t know, I felt for Eloise and Harriet who never felt the love they needed or saw the love they wanted.I also hurt for Harriet who ached for a family or who ached to be that “girl let in the window” or something like that because gosh knows I’ve been there and felt that. You know, how movies depict families eating dinner under a single dangling light, the table full of shiny, delicious food, and the people around the table are laughing and smiling at each other. You know, something so hospitable and homely. When you grow up watching or hearing about families that are so happy and you never had that, it’s painful to watch from the other side of that window craving even a smidgeon of that same homeliness—that sense that you belong somewhere and you are loved. I remember growing up and feeling like I wanted that perfect family image, where we laughed more than we screamed at each other or where we talked more than we ate in silence or the dull noise of TV. I never had that. I wanted something filled with love, not hate. Being on the other side of the window, looking into a home that was a home feels almost like being poured out drip by drip until there’s nothing but an emptiness in you that is echoing how much you want to feel loved.
I wanted to hug Harriet for the family she dreamed about.
Meeting Cleo and Sabrina was like finally finding the family she was always meant to have 💗.
A found family trope is top-tier and you can’t tell me otherwise.
I loved the first chapter of meeting Cleo and Sabrina and seeing how much the three bonded as college roommates. I loved how different they all were, but could all relate with their complex childhoods of not really belonging. But here they were belonging and being with each other. I think that’s so cool and magical when people you would never talk to or think you would vibe with turn out to be the very best people for you. Honestly, I think it’s one of the best feelings in the world—-finding people who make you feel safe and loved and like you finally fit somewhere. They were her family.
I loved how much their family grew when Sabrina started dating Parth who she used to tease and hate. There was also Kimmy who seamlessly fit into the group as Cleo’s new girlfriend. Then there was Wyn.
Harriet loved Wyn.
Clear as day.
And yet, I kept asking myself why the heck were they supposedly broken up 😅.
I could just tell how much they still loved each other in their “real-life” chapters that there was every ounce of love oozing from their eyes, so it made no sense as to what happened until I had a hunch as to what did. And gosh, was the whole situation between Harriet and Wyn complex.
Emily Henry likes to put us through the emotional wringer.
I loved loved loved the purpose behind the chapter titles 💗. Real-life was the present moment, and sometimes real-life might not be the happiest moment. Then there was the Happy Place chapters of the past—of Harriet’s fond moments with her friends and the story of how she fell in love with Wyn.
I enjoyed the slow blooming/slow-burn of Harriet and Wyn’s relationship from Harriet getting picked up by Wyn from coming back from her study abroad year. Wyn was friends with Parth at the time and was the one who went to pick her up from the airport. They had such an awkwardly funny chemistry that was also natural. I laughed with how he brought up Cleo’s nude painting of the three best friends and that’s how he knew Harriet. I would have felt a bit embarrassed that a nude painting with my friends was how this random person I didn’t quite know yet remembered me. I didn’t like the sense that Sabrina liked Wyn because it made Wyn off-limits in Harriet’s mind. I mean, Sabrina liking Wyn didn’t even seem serious because she would have other interests too. But I respected how Harriet respected her friend’s crush not to start anything with Wyn.
I thought Harriet and Wyn sharing a room at the cabin in Maine was cute with their late night conversations and describing each other in circular gestures 😂. They got even closer in New York when they were suddenly sharing a smaller space together with their friends.
Harriet and Wyn were cute tighter and had good banter.
“He’s becoming my best friend the way the others did: bit by bit, sand passing through an hourglass so slowly, it’s impossible to pin down the moment it happens. When suddenly more of my heart belongs to him than doesn’t, and I know I’ll never get a single grain back.
He’s a golden boy. I’m a girl whose life has been drawn in shades of gray.
I try not to love him.
I really try.”
(pg. 105)
When Harriet had this thought, I felt for her because here she was developing all too real feelings for someone she couldn’t like. She loved him.
I loved how Sabrina and all their friends were accepting of their relationship when Harriet and Wyn decided to tell them. However, there was some pressure of being in a relationship in a friend group that if they broke up, their friend group could break up. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a friend group—a very delicate pressure—that I don’t think Harriet and Wyn ever wanted to feel.
I enjoyed the scene where Harriet met Wyn’s family. Wyn’s family was honestly the bestest, and I loved how they easily took Harriet in and treated her with so much affability and love like she just fit in. Harriet felt like she was finally on the other side of the window with Wyn’s family, which made my heart warm because she never knew what it was like to have a family so loving and happy together. I loved that being part of Wyn’s world opened her world into having some of that love. I loved how excited Wyn was to show Harriet where he grew up and all the stories he had to tell like he just wanted Harriet a part of his life. When he told Harriet that they would come home soon, my heart warmed like hot coco in how he truly did give her a home in him and with his family. Harriet’s happy place was obviously Wyn because he made her feel safe, loved, and liked she belonged. Wyn made her happy. It was that simple.
During his trip home, there was a moment where they talked about why Wyn left for college. Wyn didn’t have a distinct reason to go to college the same way Harriet did. Harriet went to college because she wanted to become a doctor—she knew what path she wanted to take. Wyn left Montana even though he loved Montana so he could do what most people did—to figure out what was out there, his dreams. But in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Wyn left for college to figure out his dreams, but instead found the girl of his dreams 🥺💗. It’s crazy how sometimes life works that way—that you never know the reason for something until you do.
Wyn meeting Harriet’s family put the aka in aka-awkward. I mean, not to rain on Harriet’s family, but there was such a stark contrast from Wyn’s family who welcomed Harriet with open arms and the tension that exuded from Harriet’s family who kept their hands to themselves. The whole interaction felt very stiff and weird, but I think that was because the parents didn’t really know how to emote or show emotions because they had been unhappy for a long time, that they didn’t know how to be anything but.
“My parents aren’t people of words, but they sacrificed so much. That’s love, and I hate that I want more from them. That I can’t just feel grateful for all they’ve given me, because at all times I’m aware of what it cost them. “
(pg. 246)
How awful.
At the dinner, Harriet’s parents were finally praising her, but it wasn’t Harriet they were proud of, but proud of what she stood for—-that they had a smart daughter who was amounting to something. Harriet was the cherished soon-to-be-doctor that they could boast, the daughter who would have made all their sacrifices worth it. Eloise was the daughter who didn’t have monumentous accomplishments. It bothered me how much Harriet felt like she owed her parents something for sacrificing their happiness for their family. I don’t think that’s fair to make her or Eloise feel like it was their fault for being unhappy when they didn’t need to get married or stay together if they were not happy. Sure, they sacrificed a lot, but they also needed to work through their own issues and not place it on their kids.
Also, Harriet’s feelings were more than valid in feeling upset that she felt wrong for not being grateful because her parents showed their love in sacrifice, but she wanted to feel more of their love in other ways. We all need to be loved the way we need to be loved and it breaks my heart that Harriet and her sister were not loved the way they needed to be. Your parents can do everything and sacrifice things for you, but if they never show you love the way you best receive love or they don’t even show you love other than pay for things, I’m not too sure that is what love is. Sure, sacrifice comes from a place of love, but love is so much more than saying “take my money or let me pay for this.” I just felt for the Harriet who felt guilty when she had no reason to.
I REALLY didn’t appreciate what the mom told Harriet when they were in the kitchen together ☹️.
I mean, it’s sad enough that Harriet loaded returning home due to all the awful memories—that home wasn’t her happy place—but for her mom to be so blunt as to say that Wyn wasn’t the right guy for her was terrible. I appreciated that the mom was honest because, you know, we love honesty, but seriously? Telling your daughter that the guy she loves isn’t someone you could see her with. DANG. Someone call the fire department because that was a grade A BURN!
“”He’s sweet, honey . . .but frankly, I don’t see it.’
My heart jitters. ‘See what?’
‘Him making you happy’ she says. ‘You making him happy.’
‘I am happy,’ I say.
‘Now. . . But that’s the kind of boy who’s going to want to move home and start having kids. He’s going to want someone who’s at home, who has a life that matches his. I pictured you with someone who had a bit more going on, who wouldn’t expect more from you than you were able to give.'”
(pg. 241)
For someone in a miserable relationship not filled with love, she sure did have an opinion 🙃.
Excuse me??????
Why were we going to take advice from the woman who was in a stoic relationship and who was generally unhappy and who probably wanted others to feel as miserable as she felt 🤪????????
The mom didn’t know her daughter and she didn’t know Wyn, sooooo . . . But also, the mom wasn’t entirely wrong that Wyn was the kind of guy who loved his hometown and probably wanted to settle down there one day. However, the mom was wrong in saying that they couldn’t make each other happy because the mom was just projecting her unhappiness onto their relationship. And I truly think the mom’s words effected the way Harriet viewed her relationship with Wyn, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As much as Harriet’s mom was honest, I thought what she said was shizzy and didn’t have her daughters best interest at heart.
After they met both parents, things kind of sped up in real life.
In their friendship group, things were changing because they were all getting older and college was more of a distant memory. Parth was studying in New York, hence why most of their friend group moved out to New York. However, Cleo suddenly announced that she was going to work upstate at a farm, which meant that the friend group would all officially be going their separate ways. I kind of wanted to explore more why Cleo wanted to run a farm—nothing against running a farm—but for someone who was a phenomenal artist, I didn’t understand how she was interested in farm work all of a sudden. I mean, go Cleo, but I wanted to know why she chose the farming route instead of art. Kimmy was going to move with Cleo to run the farm. Sabring and Parth would be together on the east coast, and Harriet and Wyn would be on the West Coast for her residency.
Harriet and Wyn were also engaged, which happened so naturally I must say. To be honest, I am a big romantic proposer person—I like the whole grand gesture—and I would have liked a whole grand gesture between Harriet and Wyn. However, I understood how organic their relationship was, so their proposal matched that. But I still would have liked something more than Harriet casually saying they should get married and then Wyn agreeing and then all of a sudden pulling out this ring he bought. But I get it.
Anyway, everything was changing and the dynamics of the friendship was shifting.
As we get older, life changes and the way life looks also changes.
We don’t always live in the same places as our friends and sometimes we don’t see them every day, week, or month. Sometimes we see them once a year. Sometimes we don’t even see them once a year, but text or call. Life becomes about finding time for people you love. I never understood how difficult it was to maintain relationships as adults until I found my relationships at a crossroads. I also never understood how lonely being an adult can be too. Sometimes I do wish that we could go back to when things were easier and I could see my friends everyday and talk about random, menial things because we had nothing but time together. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel like I had to literally schedule and write in when I meet with people because I have work or personal times where I need to decompress. But life changes. Life becomes harder and more complex when you are so close to someone and you don’t want that relationship to change because change is terrifying. Change is uncomfortable.
People like to be comfortable. We don’t enjoy change as much as many things do change.
We just have to go with it.
I remember the first time I felt a huge shift under my feet in terms of my friendships. It was when I went off to college. Most of my close friends decided to go to a university closer to home while I decided to go to the university farther from home. I chose to dorm and they chose to live at home. For the first time, I realized I was entirely alone. I didn’t have my family nor my friends. Yet, they had their family and they had each other because they were so close by. I felt like I was left out because here they were living near each other and still seeing each other like nothing really changed, while my whole life changed and I didn’t have anyone I knew. It hurt to see my friends be friends while I was alone figuring out how to make friends as an adult. I still don’t know how to make friends as an adult. But going away for college was my first experience in realizing just how much friendships could change. It was hard. I felt distant from my friends and like I wasn’t their friend anymore. Sometimes I still feel like am not and I feel awkward because they have all these inside jokes or things they laugh about because they got closer in college. I was the pariah. I was the one who went away.
So I loved how Emily Henry explores how hard adult friendships can be, especially when friends are all at different points in their lives or when friends change. I loved reading about a found family that was also going through similar and relatable struggles that I feel like most friends go through at one point.
I think it’s the strength of the friend group that determines what happens. If that love is strong enough, then that friendship will never change, it will just look different.
When Harriet and Wyn went to San Fransisco, everything changed for them.
They were suddenly alone with no one they really knew. They were also miserable. I loved the transition from the Happy Place chapters to the Dark Place chapters because I could really feel the tonal shift.
Harriet was starting her residency and she was busy and stressed all the time. There was a big part of her that didn’t enjoy doing all the procedure work. Wyn was having a difficult time finding a job that would hire him, and he felt inadequate because Harriet was working her butt off and he couldn’t even find one place that would take him. Harriet and Wyn were also not making much moves in planning their wedding, which felt like they both didn’t want to get married—-that they were not excited about spending their lives together.
Then there was when Hank, Wyn’s father passed away.
I freaking loved Hank 😭. Even though we briefly met him when Wyn brought Harriet home, I loved that man and how much he made Harriet feel like she was always part of the family. Just the fact that Hank told Harriet he loved her and called her kiddo was so sweet because Harriet probably never grew up hearing those words often and actually feeling like those words meant something. Hank made her belong, and now he was gone.
Harriet and Wyn both fell into a darker place where they were retreating. Wyn was a ghost of his former self—-devoid, hollow, empty—and just going through the motions. Harriet felt like she needed to put on a brave face for Wyn because she didn’t want to show him how much losing Hank also hurt her. I understood where Harriet was coming from because Wyn was not emotionally strong at this time, which is absolutely valid, so she wanted to be his strength. So she shouldered on for him. However, they never really talked about their wedding, which seemed like the wrong time with the dad passing and everything. They also didn’t talk about what they really felt with her not liking her residency, him not liking not having a job, and both of them feeling sad. They were both going through things in their own head and not really speaking to each other.
They eventually went back to Montana for the funeral, and Wyn was happier in Montana than he had been for however long they had been in San Francisco. I loved how Emily Henry gave this sense of Harriet knowing that Wyn had to be in Montana—-like Harriet knew it was inevitable from the second they set foot back on his home turf that that’s where Wyn needed to be. I think of the show From Scratch on Netflix and how Lino moved all the way from Italy to California to be with Amy and how Lino experienced similar challenges in finding work and fitting in. Lino felt happier in Italy because that was his home and all he had ever known.
So Harriet insisted that Wyn stay back with the mother to be with her for some time while she fly back to California for her residency. Their communication became sparse and it just never seemed like she was actually with Wyn so much that one of her co-workers painted one on her.
Harriet called Wyn the second that her co-worker kissed her, which I respected because she wanted to be honest with her fiancé, but in that phone call, Wyn broke up with her.
There were soooooo many things wrong with this situation, and I’m about to RAGE.
First, breaking up with your fiancé over a phone call is a dick move 😡. I mean, your FINACÉ!!!!!!!! At least have the respect to break up with your fiancé in freaking person and not over a four minute phone call in the middle of the night!!!!
Second of all, Harriet went for years thinking that Wyn broke up with her because she “cheated” and this co-worker kissed her. Wyn did not break up with Harriet because she cheated and this man kissed her.
Which brings me to my third point, this situation SUCKED 😩💔!!!!
I had a hunch from all the real-life chapters and previous conversations that Wyn broke up with her because they weren’t happy.
“”All I want is,’ he says, ‘is for you to be happy.'”
(pg. 186)
And that made me SOB 😭.
I cannot even tell you how many times I have uncontrollably cried while reading the Happy Place. I thought this was a happy book 😭!!!
They should call this book the Sad Place. Maybe the Heartbreak Place. What about Rip-my-heart-out Place. Anything to be more accurate.
All throughout the real-life chapters, Wyn would constantly ask Harriet if she was happy. No one who doesn’t genuinely care about you would ask you if you are happy. Wyn cared about her happiness after all these years because he still loved her. In all the Happy Place chapters, it felt like Wyn and Harriet knew that they were soulmates or that they were each other’s forevers and that there would be no one else, so I was highly confused as to why they called everything off if they loved each other and Wyn cared so much about her happiness!??!?!?!?!?!
The break-up all went back to that one conversation about happiness.
“”Just promise,’ I say, ‘we’ll end things before we ever let them get like that.
Hurt flashes across his face. I want to take it back, but I don’t. This is all I can give him, all I can give myself: some tiny measure of protection.
. . . ‘If we’re making each other unhappy,’ I say as evenly as I can,’ we can’t keep going. I couldn’t stand living every day knowing you resent me.'””
(pg. 247)
Harriet made Wyn promise that they would break up with each other if they ever made each other unhappy 😩.
With the dark place they were in—-Wyn retreating, Hank passing away, his mom getting sick, Harriet’s residency, their lack of a wedding—-they were both unhappy. I felt like Wyn blamed himself for making Harriet unhappy because he was going through something in this dark place he was in. Wyn was naturally in a dark place and I didn’t expect him to feel okay with everything that was going on in his life. Harriet was also naturally in a dark place with adjusting to change. Two people in dark, heavy places, makes for one black abyss. They were spiraling and nothing was getting better. I just don’t think Wyn knew that Harriet also felt like she was to blame because she wasn’t doing more either—talking to him, talking about residency, talking about the wedding, etc. They both felt like they were making each other unhappy.
But Wyn was the one shouldered most of that responsibility because he felt like he was more to blame. So he broke up with her knowing that he couldn’t be the man she needed when he was in a heavy place and thousands of miles from her that some other guy would just kiss her—-her felt like he wasn’t giving her enough that some other guy was giving her attention.
I just really hurt knowing how much they were both hurting and were unhappy. They were the right people for each other and they loved each other, but life just got heavy and that made for a complex situation.
I mean, just the fact that they cared so much about the other being happy was just so incredibly mature and honest. Someone truly loves you if they want for you to be happy at the end of the day; that they care more for your happiness than they do theirs or what the situation feels like.
I don’t blame Harriet for saying to Wyn that if they were ever in an unhappy place that they need to call their relationship off. She didn’t want to be her parents, and be with someone who didn’t want to be with her or vice versa. I understood and respected that. But her relationship with Wyn wasn’t her parents. I think just because your parents relationship wasn’t successful or the epitome of love, doesn’t mean your relationship is incapable of being everything a beautiful, lasting relationship can be.
For Wyn and Harriet I did think that they needed to focus on what was going to pull them out of such deep places and they couldn’t do that together. As much as it was painful for both of them, I liked how they knew when to back away respectfully to allow each other to grow and figure things out—-a chance to be happy. I think that’s absolutely mature because sometimes people are in relationships since elementary, middle, or high school—such formative years—that the individuals in that relationship never had a chance to grow by themself. I am not saying you need to be single if you have found the one, but sometimes I wonder how people grow in relationships where they grew up together—-how does that person find themselves when they are growing with their partner? I think that’s beautiful thought that they can grow with their partner, but I just wonder how. I think it takes a lot to say we need a break and space to work on our own things before I can be with you again if it’s meant to be. I truly do believe that if something is meant to be, it will be. Other times, I think it’s hard when you hold onto the hope that something will be when it won’t because then you’re just waiting. Relationships are complicated.
“Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another. Our love is a place we can always come back to and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was. “
(pg. 225)
But I respected Wyn and Harriet for knowing that they were unhappy and to focus on their happiness first.
They had split up for six months before seeing each other again in not the best circumstances: a friend reunion because their happy place cabin was being sold.
Their friends didn’t know that they had called off their engagement, so they had to fake date their way through the week because telling their friends that they had called off their relationship would have put a damper on the fact that Sabrina and Parth were getting married that weekend. I liked how the book wasn’t about trying to save the summer house because it matched how the friend group was older now, and sometimes we grow out of places so we can grow into new ones. They were all at different places in their life and they had beautiful memories of the cabin from when they were in college, but I felt it was right that they could make new memories somewhere else. They were just enjoying the time they had left together in a place that brought them all happiness.
Or well, at least not complete unhappiness.
I would have been more than upset if I had saw Wyn six months after he called off our engagement over a four minute phone call. I don’t blame Harriet for being peezed that he was there and that he was okay.
I would have also been more than peezed if Wyn seemed okay/happy after all this time. Harriet was still hurting. I liked that she was mad that Wyn was doing okay because her anger meant she still cared about him. They were also kind of really petty—in the best way—to really sell their fake relationship to their friends and try to get a reaction out of each other. I gotta say, we love that Wyn’s a physical touch kind of man 🙈. I freaking laughed, though, whenever Harriet would sit on Wyn’s lap and she would move her butt around and then Wyn would be bothered because he would start to feel something-something, and then Harriet would feel smug. I mean, hey, make him pay for breaking up with you, and honestly, if his body is reacting the way it was, he obviously still loved her.
Then there was the whole scene where they were stuck in the wine cellar together. That must have been hard for both of them knowing the last time they were in the wine cellar was when they shared their first steamy kiss under the stairs. I felt for Wyn in how he was claustrophobic being trapped in the cellar because of the time he was trapped under a piano. I liked how Harriet was there for him and tried to be civil. But nothing says, let’s talk it out more than forced proximity. I just felt like, gosh, the situation sucked for Wyn who was traumatized as a kid and was now stuck in a cellar. Haha, speaking of forced proximity, we love a one-bed trope. If they didn’t share a bed in this cabin, I would have been disappointed 😂.
I just love how authors love to make their characters the most uncomfortable for entertainment sake.
Harriet also was jealous that she didn’t know this new Wyn who could buy expensive coffee table books and would smile into his cell phone. Wyn used to be frugal with his money, but now he was making the equivalent to West Elm furniture and was living like Larry; he was balling. We loved that for Wyn. However, I did feel for Harriet, again, in the way that Wyn seems genuinely okay while she was hurting from not really understanding why he called off their engagement when she truly loved him.
“If he can be happy, surely, I can be fine.”
(pg. 122)
Also, the signals Wyn was sending Harriet in Real Life was absolutely saying, “I still love you and want to be with you.” The way he talked to her, looked at her, and acted around her said you are my everything.
One thing I kept asking myself before I knew why they called their relationship off was why didn’t they both fight for their relationship more if they still loved each other. I kind of wondered why Harriet didn’t fight for Wyn more if she loved him because he was the one who broke up with him, she could have fought him on it. Also, if Wyn really wanted to be with her after he took time to himself, he could have fought for her too. There was just no agency on either of their parts, and absolutely no communication because they weren’t talking about how they both felt at the time. They didn’t know what the other was feeling or experiencing in their Dark Place, and they would have known if they, I don’t know, communicated 😅.
When Harriet barreled to Wyn in the middle of his shower to speak her truth, I was like, “let’s go, sis!!!” Awful timing—or good timing deepening on who you ask 😉— since he was naked.
She finally said all she had been holding in for the past six months in not knowing what went wrong or what she did to make him miserable enough to call off their engagement. Wyn was finally honest with her too in saying how he was in a dark place, where he later realized was depression, and he thought he was making her miserable and that he wanted her to be happy. Wyn felt inadequate because he grew up with amazing sisters who knew what they wanted to do and a supportive family that he felt like he was failing them by not living up to being equally amazing. He also felt like he was failing Harriet by not being the best guy he could be when he was in a dark place. But what stuck out to me in Wyn’s perspective was how he felt like Harriet didn’t want to be with him when he was in that Dark Place because Harriet never talked about the wedding or that Harriet never made the effort to call him or make him feel like she missed him while he was in Montana. He didn’t feel like Harriet loved him anymore because he was in a dark place, so he let her go even if he still loved her. He didn’t want her to be unhappy. So that night when she called, he broke up with her quickly so he couldn’t change his mind. He mailed her things back so he could get rid of any traces of her so the break-up wouldn’t be so hard on him.
If you love something, set them free.
Their whole break up was based on miscommunication and assuming what the other felt.
They were both tip-toeing around each other because they felt the other was unhappy and miserable, and they both were correct. However, they didn’t know the full reason behind each other’s sorrows, so they were both pulling away because they thought they were doing what was best for each other when really what was best would have been to talk to each other about how they felt.
I loved was how Wyn did work on himself. He found out he had depression and was now taking pills to help with his depression. He started making furniture he actually liked. He was doing the work on him.
“I thought when I found a way to be happy, I’d think about you less. But instead, it’s like . . . like now that the grief isn’t strangling me, there’s all this extra room to love you.”
(pg. 288)
I genuinely didn’t expect to tear the heck up at this line 😭. Literally on my porch, sobbing.
You know sometimes when I write I am sobbing in a book review, sometimes I don’t mean I was literally balling my eyes out, but this was one of the rare moments where I was completely caught off guard with actual tears. Their situation just sucked so much and yet they had all this love for each other—love that allowed them to figure things out for themselves in their time a part and to be better for each other. So when Wyn said that he was finally in an okay place because he was moving past his grief and now he had all this room to love her . . . I mean, he still loved her 😭. Everything was just heavy in his life, and he loved her. I couldn’t get past how strong his love was.
Wyn liked that Harriet was angry at him now because he knew that meant she cared—that she was going to fight for him in some way. This goes back to how I questioned why she didn’t fight for him when they broke up because it felt like she gave up way to easily on someone she loved. I don’t know. Not that I’m blaming Harriet when the situation sucked, but you know, if you love someone, fight for them.
I WANTED TO SCREAM THOUGH 😩!!!!! They were finally being up front and honest about still loving each other and they still couldn’t be together because Harriet’s residency was in San Francisco and Wyn’s life was in Montana. I respected that Wyn didn’t want Harriet to just leave her life and follow him because then she might regret not going after her own life to follow his life and they would be stuck in another dark place. He wanted Harriet to figure out what made her happy and what she wanted her life to look like o her own terms, which I loved, but hated. I mean, get you a partner who wants you to be strong on your own, but also dang. I am a sucker for TRUE LOVE and they had true love!!!!! They needed to be together.
I was low-key surprised, but not really surprised that the whole week trip was actually Sabrina and Parth’s ploy to get Wyn and Harriet back together. I mean, devious and sneaky, but creative.
From the minute we see Cleo, Sabrina, and Harriet, you could tell something changed.
Their friendship wasn’t this highlight reel of happy moments, but their friendship felt like a buoy that they were all trying to hold onto while some people were already letting go. I got the sense that Sabrina really wanted her friends back in the way she organized this whole weekend to be perfect not only for her wedding but her friends because she barely saw them and wanted to recreate special, happy memories with them in a place that brought them closer together. I understood that. Sabrina was also holding a grudge towards Cleo who canceled on Sabrina visiting the farm. I understood how maybe Sabrina felt hurt that her friend didn’t want her over anymore when she was looking forward to having quality friend time. But I don’t think Sabrina should have made jibes towards Cleo, and should have talked to her about why Cleo cancelled and how that made her feel. Cleo felt like she was pulling away in the sense that she didn’t go along with everything Sabrina wanted to do, which created tension that Harriet felt the need to dispel.
The tattoo night was ROUGH to read.
I agreed that if Cleo didn’t want to permanently ink herself up on a spontaneous Friday night, then she had every right to say no. But you know what happens with a lot of tension?
It creates a rift that explodes.
All their anger and passive aggressive frustration came to surface, and it brought me pain seeing such close friends fight. As much as arguments are uncomfortable, arguments also clear the air.
I understood all of their perspectives, which is honestly the empathetic person in me 😅.
I understood why Sabrina was so tense and hurt because she felt like she was the glue in the friend group and the only person who wanted their friendship to last. Sabrina was the one reaching out and trying to make plans, and when people cancelled on those plans, she felt hurt because it felt like they didn’t care about her and the effort she was making. That sucks. As someone who is not that friend, I think about my friends who do reach out and how much I need to be better about reaching out too because that doesn’t feel good when you are constantly the one checking in or wanting to do things with your friends, and if they are not giving you that same interest/energy, that’s unfair.
Cleo was also right in the sense that they were not in college anymore. Life got complex and they were all at different places. Cleo was also right in saying how maybe they felt like Harriet cut them out of their life b by not telling them what happened with Wyn.
“You don’t want anger becoming fear. You want it turning into trust.”
(pg. 338)
I mean, they were her friends and Harriet should have gone to them because if you can’t go to your friends about personal things, who else do you go to? I felt like her friends thought Harriet felt like she couldn’t trust them and that hurt more. So she shut them out. I don’t proudly admit it, but I know what it is like to shut out friends because you are in a dark place. I think friends read shutting them out as no longer wanting to be your friend, when sometimes it is mostly about feeling like you don’t know how to be a friend anymore to others and yourself, so you feel like it’s better and easier to shut people out then to let them in on the heaviness going on in your life.
But knowing how close their friendship group was, Harriet felt like she didn’t want to ruin what they all shared by saying Wyn and her were over—that things would inevitably and terrifyingly change. But as someone who also has been the friend who pulled away, I understand how it can seem like we don’t care to let our friends in deeper, which only hurts a friendship because they think that you don’t trust them and they can’t come to you about things either.
“And that’s what I’m most used to: coasting along on other people’s whims and feelings.
It had never occurred to me that that could be read as apathy. That they think I just don’t care.”
(pg. 326)
I don’t make the plans, I too, go along with my friends ideas. And I know for myself it’s not because I don’t care about my friends, but I am not the most social person, but I could understand how not planning anything feels like I don’t really care to hang out with my friends when I do.
Friendship is the most sacred and special magic in the world next to love. Friendship is born of love.
Fighting with friends is like fighting with family, but I think a bit worst in the way friends are brazenly honest with each other in ways that family can sometimes not be. Friends know you better in that way. And so, I liked seeing a healthy friendship have a healthy argument from everything they were holding in because they were trying so hard to hold onto what their friendships used to be when they had to let their friendship grow into what it was supposed to. I think it’s all about being able to grow with your friends.
I loved the real conversations Harriet had with her friends later in the book.
It truly felt like for best friends, they didn’t even interact that much in the book. I loved how Cleo opened up about how she felt like she was the boring friend and that everyone liked Kimmy more because she was fun. That sucked to hear Cleo degrade herself. I think about how sometimes we are so hard on ourselves because we create these preconceive judgments but people truly see us better than we see ourselves.
“‘I don’t need you to stay the same, Cleo.”
(pg. 328)
Am sorry, but the tears just fell for this one 😭.
Let your friends change. Let them grow. If you are really someone’s friend, you will love them as they are and as they are becoming.
I loved loved loved finding out Cleo was pregnant and that Harriet was going to be a Godmother.
“But people don’t run or hide only when they they want to be alone.”
(pg. 356)
People want to be found.
I loved hen Harriet, Cleo, and Sabrina all had a hear-to-heart. It was nice to finally have a moment when the friends all talked to each other about the fears they have been having or worries about their friendship. I loved how much of a family they were because they chose to love each other—that nothing was stronger that the family they built together. And I loved that.
“And even that pain is kind of a pleasure.
To feel so loved.
To feel so deeply.”
(pg. 364)
Sometimes the greatest hurt comes from the greatest love because you felt that much about them.
But I loved how they were always going to be a family and how they were going to do better for each other. I also loved that they were going to figure out what their friendship looked like beyond the cabin they shared—that they were letting their friendship grow into something more beautiful than what they could imagine.
I also loved how Harriet finally decided to fight for Wyn again so she could have the life she wanted for herself.
I agreed that if running away or hiding was the only was you knew how to “fight,” then that was what you were going to do when someone fought with you; we learn from our parents. I appreciated how Harriet was trying to unlearn what her parents taught her and how she “fought” with Wyn about all the things he did that bothered her and vice versa. Harriet wasn’t going to wait around for her life anymore, she was going to be with Wyn in Montana because she wanted to be there. I liked how Harriet finally admitted to herself that being in her residency made her unhappy and that she didn’t want that for her life. She wanted her life to feel like a pottery class where she just enjoyed what she was doing and letting whatever happened happen. I loved the pottery moment when we saw Harriet actually happy doing something she loved because even if she wasn’t good at pottery and pottery was a bit messy, she loved what she did and she was finding the beauty in the mess. Sometimes that is what life is about, finding the beauty in the mess and letting life “change its shape” to how it was meant to be.
I mean, yes, it sucked that she spent all that money and time trying to become a doctor, but she never really wanted to be a doctor for herself. Funny how the second she told her parents she quit her residency, they all of a sudden cared because she wasn’t doing the right thing anymore. But it was interesting how Harriet sympathized with her parents because she wanted them to be happy for themselves but that wasn’t on her. They needed to allow themselves to be happy and not expect her to create this sense of happiness for them.
I liked when Eloise messaged Harriet and how they bonded over both feeling pressure to be perfect or feeling hurt by their childhood. I wish we could have gotten more Eloise and Harriet moments because I would have loved to explore their sister relationship more.
There was one moment in the book I kept rereading because the moment felt special.
“One more deal I struck with a disinterested universe: If I’m good enough, I’ll be happy.
I’ll be loved.
I’ll be safe.”
(pg. 312)
This entire page was magic in the way that sometimes we imagine what happiness looks like—that it’s this idea of having a house, the job, the family—that we think we will be happy and loved when we have it all. Happiness is what we thought would come with accomplishing all these things we felt like we had to. We think that we will be happy when, we will be happy if, we will be happy as. But if we cannot be happy as we are right now, when will we ever be happy?
Happiness isn’t what you wait for, it’s what you have.
It’s what you chose.
It’s not something you can bargain for or think that it will surely come with accomplishments (even if it does), but you have to choose to be happy and do things that make you happy. You have to choose to be loved. You have to choose to be safe. Because it’s not just going to magically appear or come as a sudden feeling. It’s within. And I think we spend so much time chasing this idea of happiness and forget to really live it.
Sometimes we push people we love away because we don’t feel like we deserve to be happy or to be loved or to be safe. We deserve that and so much more.
“Everything’s better when you’re happy.”
(pg. 344)
Gosh I loved Hank.
We all deserve to be happy.
I used to think that I would be happy if, when, where, how, just like we all do.
But happiness truly is about making your own happiness. Making your own love. Making your own safety. Happiness is a choice as it is a creation of your own. It’s not going to come from someone else.
What a simple thing, though, that everything is better when you’re happy. But it’s so true. When you’re happy, you glow differently, you look differently, you carry yourself differently, you exude different energies. Happiness makes the world look so much more beautiful and vibrant and hopeful, and it is what I wish for everyone—happiness.
Gosh knows happiness can be hard when you are in a dark place, but I hope you find your sense of happy place whether you make it or choose it. I hope you get there. And let yourself be happy. You don’t have to earn happiness. You deserve it.
Then there was the entire friendship blow up and make-up that was heart-wrenching as it was worth breaking for. I read this sentiment in many books before, but when you break, you let the light in. And when a friendship—or any relationship that matters—breaks, it is messy and it is going to hurt, but that’s how you let the light in that relationship. That’s how you shine light on what was festering beneath the surface of that relationship and how you can move forward in a stronger way because those feelings and issues come to the surface.
I hope wherever you are, whenever you are, I hope you fight for your happiness everyday and that you choose happiness more often than not. Gosh only knows that happiness will not always choose us and we will have days, weeks, months, regretfully, years where we might be stuck in a not-so-happy place, but to find those pockets of happy moments because there are so many to be had. I know it sucks and it’s tough, but I hope that things get better for you and the pain eases. Life is a string you can’t untangle no matter how hard you try; life is trying to find the four leaf clover in a field of green; life is dancing in the thunderstorm while the rain hits your face. Life is complicated, messy, and joyful if we let in.
Here’s to rooting for you everyday in every way, and to the authors who make our world a bit brighter when we need it 💗,
Anyway, what was your favorite part of the book? Least favorite part? What did you think of the book?
When you think about the phrase “happy place,” what comes to mind? For me, as cliché as this might sound, any place that has books makes me happy—-a book store, my room, a library. I just never felt comfortable at home or with people who I felt like I was supposed to be happy or comfortable around, but whenever I had a book with me or was around books, I felt less alone—-like the people in the books were real and were my secret companions. I just felt like books were my armor and my shield in a world I never quite felt like I belonged. I also feel like my “happy place’ is the wind in my hair when I’m running outside or seeing the vibrant trees and flowers as I take long walks in my neighborhood—-it’s always been the pocket of the world I create for myself.
Let me know below in the comments as I love hearing from you all 💕
I hope you have a beautiful day whenever and wherever you might be reading this 😊.
And as always, with love,
Rating
4.68 Full Bloom Flowers
Characters: I always appreciate a diverse cast of characters with different personalities coming together because people are so different in real life with their experiences, but when we connect over our differences and our similarities, it’s like magic in what we begin to understand about each other as people.
Plot: Deeply thoughtful and strikes straight to the heart 💗
Writing: I don’t know what kind of sedative Emily Henry puts in her writing, but it sure is addictive
Romance: I loved reading Wyn and Harriet find their way back to each other and find their form of happiness again.