ŷ������

5 stars

Ps: I wrote so many different versions of this review and still don’t think i did this book justice.

��

" I think I love you, Harriet,�� he says.
"I know I love you, Wyn.��

��

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Emily Henry’s plume would transport you while reading with brillant words, sophisticated metaphors and complex characters poetically broken. However, the plume was subtly substituted in 'Happy Place' by a bitter, realistic and mature writing. Be aware that the book, characters�� flaws and their "Dark Places" will either resonate with you or will be hard to empathize with. In other words, you’ll either *love it and hate it at the same time* or just feel apathetic towards it.

"The only way I can bear loving anyone this much is knowing it will never turn to poison. Knowing we’ll give each other up before we can destroy each other.��

The narrative was melancholically swaying between two distinct timelines; divided between past chapters "Happy Place", "Dark Place" that retraced poignantly Harriet and Wyn’s love story from the very cute start until the culminant point(s) that broke them appart and "Real life" chapters that translated resentfully how both of them were trapped after they broke up 5 months before in a week vacation with their best-friends who accessory didn’t know about their separation. Their only choice was to fake being together but how blurred the lines can become when they had already eight long years of practice?

"You’ve spent months trying to forget what you’re missing, I tell myself. How will you survive being reminded? Living the loss of it all over again?"

Harriet was a contradictory but yet understandable character. The way she was painted as not only a brillant neurological chirurgien but as a woman, a broken one, was one of the most lovable and relatable aspect of the storytelling. She wasn’t portrayed as a passionate workaholic who loved her job, she wasn’t stereotyped with one and only one part of her personality. With her character Emily Henry highlighted how people can be complex in such beautiful and painful ways, that their personalities can be nuanced with infinity of colores. She explained gracefully how achieving your goals and purposes in life doesn’t specially rhythm with happiness.

" I wanted to be special, Harriet,�� he says. “And since I wasn’t, I settled for trying to make everyone love me. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it’s true. I spent my whole life chasing things and people who could make me feel like I mattered."

Wyn’s personage was pretty simple to capture and dissect from the very first chapters. The "way" he did what he did was —to my opinion—transparent and cristal clear but to excuse and compassionate with him and his individual choices the last chapters were really helpful and emotionally draining.

"Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was.
You belong here."

Every touch, every word had its own importance in the way their relationship flourished and tarnished. Their love had an elegiac tone in how Harriet was describing the "lose" of the love of her life in the present chapters and an eternal essence in how their love seemed unbreakable in the past chapters.
Both of the them where in "Dark Palces" at the end of their relationship. So how can you save a ship when both captains have already drowned?

"The irony of it all strikes me then: working so hard to earn their love and pride, and it’s brought me no closer to them. If anything, I think maybe it’s kept them at a distance."

The book didn’t aboard only one traditional meaning of "love in crisis"; the storyline balanced with friends and family love-problems. It embraced some touchy and moving aspects of the word. For exemple, how adulthood can dig an abyss between longtime friends; how lies and secrets can break trust and finally, how resentment and an avid want of money might wreck a family.

��•~•~•~

Quote :

So many, and i don’t even think i joined the review with the most pertinent ones😭

"He looks too earnest, too lost, like he’s desperately trying to understand.
Like he can’t fathom that all my love for him didn’t just vanish, the way his did for me. That it had to go somewhere, and funneling it into anger is how I’ve managed to make it through these last two days.
It makes me feel alone. It makes me feel defeated"

"I can’t help but think he doesn’t look any happier than I feel."

"So many of his details are slightly different, but my heart still sees him and whispers into my veins, You."

"Home, I think. That’s new.
But it’s not. It’s been growing there for a while, this new room in my heart, this space just for Wyn that I carry with me everywhere I go."

" I am in that phase of love where you’re sure no two people have ever felt this way before."

"It wasn’t that he was angry. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust me.
He just didn’t want me anymore."

"He was never yours to keep, and deep down you knew that.
I watched him fade from me, bit by bit, day by day, a mirage receding into nothingness."


« The silence leaves too much room for questions, for memories to vine around me, hold me captive. »

"I would’ve done anything to bring you back to me for one last minute."


"I’ve memorized the rhythm of his breathing when he sleeps and the smell of his skin when he’s been out in the sun, and I know when he’s afraid."

"Want is a kind of thief. It’s a door in your heart, and once you know it’s there, you’ll spend your life longing for whatever’s behind it "

"And it feels like taking a shot of tequila every time I hear it. Like I could get drunk on the sound of you. Or hungover when I go too long without you."

" I was afraid they’d ask me what went wrong, and no matter what answer I cobbled together from the rubble, they’d see right through it.
They’d know I wasn’t enough."

~~~~~
I wanted to play it cool and only say "ouh me gad, everyone lied to me this is not a contemporary romance but a freaking elegy poem" but im not cool and i need to pour my heart out so rtc

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���
ctr: the way the title is literally HAPPY PLACE but everyone is sobbing and sad IS MAKING ME HELLA SCARED🥲
Buddy read with Rae, mama vee and vio🤭
—�Ĕ�Ĕ���
tbr: J -4 🥳 but it feels like everyone already read it