People We Meet on Vacation

I admit, I picked up this book because it I liked the idea of going on a virtual vacation. Plus, the cover looked awfully beach-y and it was on Goodreads best books list for 2021, so I picked it up expecting some fun light reading. However, I only made it through maybe two or three chapters before I started heavily skimming, and finally just put it down. I’m usually up for a good light romance, but this book bored me almost from the start, and like my book club leader always says, “life is too short and there are too many good books out there to waste time on a bad one.” It started out well, with the author introducing us to Poppy and Alex, two twenty-somethings in England who are besties and go on vacation every year. Poppy is carefree and wild while Alex is serious and intelligent. So polar opposites, yet you know from the beginning they will eventually end up together. Good premise, but then the book started to fall off the rails for me. There’s a big “mystery” on why they no longer take their traditional summer vacations together, but the author just draws it out so the reader is left wondering...and wondering...and wondering what happened with no resolution in sight. I was finally so over this little “mystery” that I skipped ahead trying to find the answer until I realized I just didn’t care anymore. It’s the main plot of the book so not caring kinda told me that this wasn’t the book for me. But I kept looking until I finally figured out what happened, and all I could think was “seriously?! THIS is what ruined a decade-long friendship? You’ve got to be kidding me!” So no, I don’t particularly recommend this book even as a light read, but then with over 307,000 people giving it a Goodreads average rating of 4.07 out of 5, I’m clearly in the minority.