Spoilers!
No matter how far you go, you still have to contend with yourself. I learned that lesson in 2015 after going to Colorado for an internship; I’ve written about it before on my blog here. Suffice it to say, the youthful thoughts of “flapping my wings” beyond Ohio, emerging like a freewheeling bird from the seeming chains of looming domesticity and a boring life, doesn’t amount to much when you’re broken on the inside and unable and unwilling to address it. Fittingly, in Emily Henry’s 2021 book, People We Meet on Vacation, Poppy seeks to “spread her wings” beyond her zany family and lonely existence in Ohio, but her friendship to Alex complicates everything.
Poppy desires to see the world, to not be grounded. She wants to experience new things and talk to interesting people. To accomplish this, she moves away from Ohio, drops out of college, starts a blog and amasses, slowly, social media followers until R&R magazine, an aspirational vacation magazine, hires her. They then pay her to take glitzy and well, aspirational, trips to destination spots all over the world. Sounds like a dream job, right? Along the way, during her brief stint in college, she meets Alex, who just so happens to be from the same dreary small town in Ohio. Except, he loves it, embraces his family there, and his dream is to return there with a wife in a nice house and make a family. Their friendship starts out with, how Poppy describes it, her playing the annoying sister role and him the big brother role. She’s the quirky lofty type to his quotidian orientation; the free spirit to his steadiness. Like any great relationship, humor brings them together, bonding over likes and dislikes on a road trip back to Ohio during college.
From there, Poppy and Alex start taking summer vacations together each year — the perfect time because he’s a would-be teacher and then a teacher. For 12 years, they go on vacations to various places within the United States because the first half dozen are still before R&R is paying for it. Those vacations occur alongside their respective relationships with other people, ups and downs, career moves and the like. Along the way, Poppy tells us that their relationship is platonic, but that there is a 5 percent mired in, what if? Sometimes, if they happen to touch too closely or gaze into each others eyes, that percentage climbs to 15 percent, but Poppy hastily tries to quelch it. One of their vacations even involves “double dating,” as it were, with Sarah, Alex’s on-and-off against romantic interest, and Trey, a photographer at R&R (I’m shocked Poppy goes with him since he’s a smoker!).
As Henry’s book essentially “counts down” the vacations they’ve taken over the years, we know from the “present” storytelling that something happened in Croatia and it was their last vacation together. Ever since that vacation, they hadn’t spoken in two years. Then, with Alex’s little brother, David, getting married, it sort of rekindles their talking and that this would be the opportune time to vacation again in the lead-up to the wedding festivities in Palm Springs, California. Unfortunately, no matter how hard Poppy is trying to rekindle the good times with Alex — and boy, how relatable is it to try to rekindle something you know isn’t there anymore? — nothing is going well. It’s scorching hot. There is no air conditioning in their Airbnb. Their car breaks down. Alex has back spasms and dizzy spells. Everything’s a mess. Then, just when it seems like Poppy and Alex have reached their breaking points, rain emerges, and the rain wipes away any inhibitions; they passionately kiss. They have sex. They’re tentative thereafter through the wedding festivities, but once realizing they want this, they have sex again. Finally, it’s time to return to their respective lives in Ohio and NYC. As they part at the airport, hastily to make their flights, Alex freaks out that this was tantamount to a vacation fling for Poppy and Poppy, for her part, can’t seem to communicate her words. They go back to not talking. Dammit to hell! We find out that a similar-ish situation happened in Croatia. They drunkenly kissed, with Alex backing off, saying it was a mistake and Poppy agreeing.
This is where I will say, on one hand, I wanted Poppy and Alex to remain platonic friends to prove the point that women and men can be platonic friends without it meaning more and becoming more. And of course, on the other hand, the romcom sap in me wanted them to stop dancing around how they were feeling and just become a dang couple!
The backstory on Alex, and why he’s so scared that Poppy sees their coupling as fleeting, is that his mother died when he was young. As the oldest of four boys, he essentially raised his younger brothers and helped his grieving father. So, not only is he preternaturally predisposed to put his wants and needs secondary, but he’s terrified that if he gives in to his want and need for Poppy and they become a couple, she’ll die some day and leave him bereft in the world. He can’t bear that. And as mentioned on Poppy’s front, she’s not only scared of planting roots and being tethered, she’s scared that that tether will lead someone back to uncovering the real Poppy and not loving what they see. Again, all quite relatable!
Thankfully, they both go to therapy, where Poppy realizes she can’t keep running away from herself and Alex realizes he’s scared to let himself be happy. In a definite romcom scene, Poppy flies back to Ohio and tracks Alex down at a bar where she delivers a steely monologue about how much she loves him and she’ll do anything to be with him, even if it means coming back to Ohio. Alex, still scared, is rather noncommittal seeming. Poppy leaves, crying, and Alex, like the romcom counterpart to Poppy he is, follows, and explains why he’s scared (the aforementioned fear of losing her if they commit). At that moment, my sappy ass was teary-eyed. Anyhow, they get together and live happily ever after. Phew.
I adore Emily Henry’s writing and her books. There’s no other way to say it. She’s three for three with her books I’ve read, Funny Story, Book Lovers, and now People We Meet on Vacation. Her books are so deeply human, relatable (and not just because we share Ohio as a home state!), laugh-out-loud funny, and they pull on my heartstrings enough to make me feel without being overly contrived. I loved Poppy and Alex and their relationship and their brokenness. They were fully realized humans waiting, needing to realize they were meant to fit together.
Milam's Musings 