Book Review: Book Lovers | Emily Henry

If you think you are a fan of the small-town love story, this book will both delight and surprise you! The popular city girl finds love in a small town trope is highlighted and deconstructed in Emily Henry’s Book Lovers.

About the Book | Book Lovers

Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

Review | Book Lovers

I love a good rom com about a big city girl who gives up her high paying corporate job for a small town, happy life and true love (maybe because I wish I could do that). However in Book Lovers, this trope is both admired and torn apart. For starters, the two main characters are both from New York City. Nora Stephens is a driven, often cutthroat literary agent who takes a trip to a small town in North Carolina with her sister for the month of August.

Nora is not the type who is looking to star in her own romance novel. She’s more likely to be cast as the villainous current or ex-girlfriend of the man who actually falls for the lead of a romance novel. In fact, Nora has been dumped again by a man who left her to move to a small town. It was fun see Nora check off the list of small-town experiences her sister Libby wanted for her, but there are no ranchers or B&B owners attempting to break down Nora’s walls.

Instead, Nora keeps running into Charlie Lastra, a book editor who she has met several times before in NYC. Nora not only isn’t smitten with Charlie, she considers him her nemesis. So the fact that both ended up in the same small town, states away from the city that pits them against one another allows them to see the other in a different light.

When they continue to run into one another,  Nora and Charlie realize that away from the cutthroat book industry in NYC, they have an undeniable attraction to one another. It turns out that while Nora came for fun and adventure with her sister, Charlie grew up there and came back to support the family bookstore while his mother cares for his sick father. For Nora, the idea that Charlie may be staying in Sunshine Falls, NC means they don’t have a future as a couple.

I loved the way two city people were thrust into a small town and learning to follow their hearts. It was open through most of the book whether they would return to the city life they love, fall for small town life, or separate on their own journeys. I liked the relationship between Nora and Charlie, but I really loved the sister relationship between Nora and Libby. There was a lot of emotion there, which was balanced by humor and chemistry in the other parts to the story.

I love that Emily Henry takes romance tropes and honors them while also turning them inside out. It makes her stories stand out among the genre. It never feels like she is criticizing those tropes or books that follow them, but rather that she feels inspired by them and allows her stories to take their own journey towards a conclusion.

As always with Emily Henry, this is a story that perfectly mixes romantic love, with friendship, healing, finding yourself, and emotions. Her books always hit a touching note that is challenging to replicate. Her characters (and Nora is no exception) have wonderful growth arcs during the book. Henry loves to focus on the moments and people who fundamentally change us for the better.

Funny, heartwarming, emotional, charming, and restorative! Never doubt that an Emily Henry book can deliver exactly what you didn’t know you needed.

About the Author | Emily Henry

Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation and Beach Read, as well as the forthcoming Happy Place. She lives and writes in Cincinnati and the part of Kentucky just beneath it.

Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.