Books like Beach Read
What should you read after Emily Henry’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Emily Henry
- 2020
- 384 pages
- Romance
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Beach Read
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchPeople We Meet on Vacation
Emily Henry
Emily Henry doing the friends-to-lovers version: ten summers of the same trip, the same fast banter, and the same grief sitting quietly under the jokes.
- Banter
- Genuinely funny
- A slow burn next door
- Friends-to-lovers, not enemies
Great matchBook Lovers
Emily Henry
Henry again, and the most knowing of them: a literary agent and an editor arguing about the books they sell, in a town that thinks it's a Hallmark film.
- Banter
- A small lake town
- Genuinely funny
- Sisters, not grief, at its core
Best for writer's block and craftWriters & Lovers
Lily King
The literary version: a waitress six years into an unfinished novel and one year into her mother's death, and King is extremely good on both of those.
- Writer's block and craft
- Grief under the comedy
- Banter
- Literary, not a rom-com
Best for a slow burn next doorEvvie Drake Starts Over
Linda Holmes
A widow and a washed-up pitcher renting rooms in the same Maine house, both stuck and both funny about it. Small-town, slow-burning, quietly sad underneath.
- A slow burn next door
- A small lake town
- Grief under the comedy
- Gentler, and much lower heat
Best for banterThe Hating Game
Sally Thorne
Two office rivals playing games neither of them will admit to, and the dialogue is as fast and as mean as anything Henry writes. No grief, just the fun.
- Banter
- Genuinely funny
- Grief under the comedy
- No grief, and no depth
Worth a look — with a warningNormal People
Sally Rooney
If the ache underneath the jokes was the part you kept, Rooney gives you all of that and removes every joke and any promise of a happy ending.
- A slow burn next door
- Grief under the comedy
- Genuinely funny
- No comedy in it at all
What should you read after Beach Read?
Beach Read by Emily Henry works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry — emily Henry doing the friends-to-lovers version: ten summers of the same trip, the same fast banter, and the same grief sitting quietly under the jokes.
If what stayed with you was banter, read Book Lovers by Emily Henry instead: henry again, and the most knowing of them: a literary agent and an editor arguing about the books they sell, in a town that thinks it's a Hallmark film. Writers & Lovers by Lily King is the other strong option — the literary version: a waitress six years into an unfinished novel and one year into her mother's death, and King is extremely good on both of those.
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