Summer is fast approaching, and with that, comes long hours of sitting poolside with a fun beverage at your side. As you are achieving your perfect sun-kissed tan, what better way is there to pass the time than to read the book of the summer? Run to your closest bookstore and pick up Happy Place by Emily Henry.

The story follows Harriet as she tackles a tumultuous time in her life. Her and Wyn, a man she had been in a relationship with since college, have broken up their engagement as of a few months prior. Her best friends still don't know because she is still coming to terms with the reality of it herself. This all comes to a head when she arrives at the Maine cottage for the vacation she takes with her friends every summer. Prior to the trip, her and Wyn agreed that only she would attend this year and break the news to their friends about their separation. To her shock, she finds him standing with all of her friends when she arrives at the cottage. Two of their best friends have decided to get married on this trip and the cottage is being sold, which caused her friends to convince Wyn to come without her knowledge. Harriet and Wyn decide to pretend they are still together for the duration of the trip, in order to not ruin the celebrations and their final annual trip.

At the surface this is a fake-dating rom-com with a second-chance romance, but as you continue to turn the pages it becomes so much more. Henry tackles love in so many forms: romantic, familial, friendship, self, and career. Even though you remain in the perspective of Harriet for the entirety of the novel, she writes her characters in a way that allows the reader to be deeply connected with any of them. Every character, no matter how small, ends feeling so incredibly tangible to the reader. Henry will have tears streaming down your face as you read about Harriet struggling with wanting, more than anything, to please those she loves, but then as you flip the page you will be laughing at the banter between the characters and all of the sparkly memories they are recounting.

Henry's ability to tug at your heart strings while making you smile, makes her recently published novel the perfect poolside read. You will be thinking about what your happiest places are and who your happiest places are with, cherishing all forms of love in your life in a way you never have before. Easily done in one sitting, or over the course of a few days if you like to preserve the pages like me, you will be starting the book over again as soon as you read the last words.