My niece and I are having another buddy-read, well, re-read for me, because we want to watch the Netflix movie. Since it's a re-read for me, I'll post my original thoughts... I have no new insights to add...
There is surprising depth to this chick-lit. At first, I wasn't sure about the narrative structure of flashbacks alternating with "this summer," but it worked. The characters are well-developed although sometimes the main character-narrator Poppy annoyed me. She's self-centered and slightly dishonest, but her character evolves by the end of the book. I liked the will-they-or-won't-they, opposites attract, friends to lovers tropes. I especially loved the inside jokes that Poppy and Alex maintain on their travel adventures. Lots of witty banter.
From the publisher:
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
