Happy Place by Emily Henry review: A cosy, grounded story about love and friendships

Happy Place by Emily Henry: The review

Happy Place by Emily Henry is the first romance/women’s fiction book I’ve picked up in… a long time. Well, probably since the cosy Christmas novels I read over Christmas 2023. For the last few years, I’ve primarily read thrillers and crime novels, but I’ve been feeling the need to read something… softer for the first time in a while. That book turned out to be Happy Place, as part of an Instagram buddy read. While it took me a little while to get into the slow, cosy nature of the book — and shake of the feeling of “who’s going to get murdered first?” — I ended up really enjoying it. It turns out a change of pace is good for the soul.

Happy Place is the story of Harriet, or Harry. She’s a 20-something going through a bit of turmoil in her life. She’s recently separated from her long-term partner, Wyn, and her job, as a junior doctor (a brain surgeon, no less), keeps her very busy. Living by herself in San Francisco, she doesn’t get to see her friends very often, so she’s glad to be invited to their annual get-together at her friend’s parents’ house across the country in Maine. What she doesn’t bank on, however, is her ex, Wyn, also being there. An even bigger problem is that she hasn’t yet managed to tell her friends that they are no longer together. How on earth is she going to get through a week of pretending to still be with him?

Admittedly, the opening to Happy Place is rather slow. We get to know Harriet and Wyn, both separately and together, and eventually, get to know about how their relationship broke down. We also learn about their friendship group and the dynamics: this is a group of people who formed during university and, more than a decade later, they’re still trying to live like carefree students. If only. Without the romantic element of Harry and Wyn, it’s a tale that many of us will be touched by: the feeling of growing apart from old friends, and struggling to maintain friendships when real life gets in the way.

But of course, the romance element is at the heart and soul of Happy Place. The book is split over two timelines: essentially, ‘now’, with Harriet, Wyn and their friends uniting for a week’s vacation, and ‘then’, a very brief retelling of how Harry and Wyn got together, and their relationship developing over the years. Told from Harry’s perspective, we’ll learn how she’s battling with her emotions, struggling to let go of Wyn, and still angry how the relationship ended. Eventually, we’ll find out exactly how it all went down, and over time, we’ll get a glimpse of how Wyn feels about everything, too.

This is a book largely about emotions, about love, and about the struggles of everyday life. There are themes here that almost all of us will be able to resonate with: heartbreak, feeling inadequate, depression, the importance of friendships, the difficulty of trying to please of your family. They’re all dealt with tenderly and delicately; nothing is ever in-your-face. It’s that subtlety that perhaps made Happy Place a little difficult to get into at first. But once I settled into its slow, relaxed pace, I lapped it up. It’s a wonderfully-written book, and while it isn’t a novel filled with big twists and huge events, it’s a delicate slice-of-life that provides a pleasant and relaxing escape.