BEACH READ Book Club Kit by PRH Library

DEAR READERS, At its core, Beach Read is a book about secrets. The kind we keep about ourselves to avoid pain or rejection, yes, but also the kind that we keep for our private joy, a corner of the world held only for ourselves. In 2016, I was suffering from a terrible bout of writer’s block. My first novel for teens had come out, the edits for my second were complete, and for the first time in years, I had no new ideas, nothing I was excited to work on. Like January and Augustus, the main characters in Beach Read, I was stuck—both overwhelmed by what was going on in the real world and daunted by the pressure of having an audience expecting something from me. Before publishing, I had written in a solitary, trancelike state, with no judgment or selfconsciousness. But once I started actually sharing my work, all that changed. As is the case with January and Gus at the start of the novel, I was wrestling with the transition from writing as a sacred space just for me to being something I’d share with the world. Like my main characters, I was struggling to find joy in the work I once found so crucial. But, also like January and Gus, my solution turned out to be relatively simple. Instead of another of the genre-bent young adult novels I’d been publishing, I began working on a contemporary love story about two people in their early thirties. What’s more, I didn’t tell a single person about it. Beach Read became my new hiding place, and from within its warmth and safety, I wrestled with my questions about the creative life—and the human one. As I guided January and Gus through an investigation of their writer’s block, I discovered that my own was not the disease I’d seen it for, but rather a symptom of those deep, human fears we all wrestle with: Are the things we love worthy of our time, even when the world seems to be falling apart? Is vulnerability worth the risk of rejection? When do our secrets shield us and when do they simply block us? How do we find joy in the moment without the guarantee of a happy ending? There are, of course, no easy answers to these kinds of questions, but working on this secret book of mine, I found a warm, cozy space from which to ask them. Now, though, this place belongs to you, too, and I’m truly honored that you’ve chosen to visit it. I hope Beach Read greets you like a warm hug, like an old friend with an abundance of love. And I hope that as you read it, the obstacles to your creative, human life shrink and you find the path to your own Happy For Now. Happy reading,

Emily Henry

A CONVERSATION WITH

EMILY HENRY How would you describe Beach Read ? My editor has described it as a warm hug of a book, and I love that so much! When I started writing it, I really was on a mission to write the exact book I was in the mood for: a smart, funny, warm love story that would make me feel like I was lying on a sun-drenched beach with the whole summer ahead of me and nothing to do but bask and sip on something fruity.

Beach Read is a love story between two stereotypically different authors—a romance writer and a literary writer. What inspired this idea? I started writing this book as the direct result of dealing with writer’s block. I knew I wanted to work on a summery romance, but I had very few ideas as far as plot. So few ideas that I literally just wrote the main character, January, as a romance writer who was blocked herself. Moving forward from that point, every plot decision I made was either about asking what might contribute to a creative block or about actively putting more obstacles in the way of January’s ability to write. So basically, Gus became a writer purely because I couldn’t imagine anything more frustrating than trying to write an overdue book while living next door to someone who appeared to be better at it than you. He became a literary fiction writer because the only thing worse than living next door to your very attractive rival—while wrestling with self-doubt—would be projecting those doubts onto said rival. To get at the heart of any character, I think you have to press on their sore spots and see how they react. For January, snobbery against the genre she writes in is a very sore spot, and I really wanted to make her face all of her doubts and her defensiveness and fight for what she wanted, while also creating as much friction and tension between her and Gus as possible.

January and Gus each have pointed opinions about the other’s genre. Have you ever faced genre stereotypes? Definitely! I’m a huge fan of books in both the young adult and women’s fiction categories, and while there’s a lot of love and support for both those kinds of books, every once in a while you have an interaction with someone outside those realms that feels like a bucket of cold water being dumped over your once blissfully warm and dry head. Once, I remember I told someone what kind of books I wrote and he said, “Whatever pays the bills, right?” That line actually made it into Beach Read verbatim. Sometimes people don’t respect you once they find out what you make, or sometimes they still respect you, but because of their own preconceived notions that respect translates into an assumption that you don’t actually love the work you’re doing. But I do!

January and Gus struggle with writer’s block. Tell us about your own experience with writer’s block. How do you deal with it? It sucks! The funny thing about writer’s block is, apparently I’m capable of writing 90,000 words about writer’s block. I’m supremely jealous of all those people out there who don’t believe it exists, and up to a point, I’m with them: I can pretty much always force myself to sit down, open up a Word document, and type something. But that doesn’t mean that when I read it back it at the end of the day, it won’t turn out that I was writing a really poorly-remembered recap of the first seasons of Felicity. I can almost always make myself write, but the question is, should I? The most effective tool for cracking writer’s block for me has proven to be asking questions about where exactly the block is coming from. If it’s fear that I’m not up to a new challenge or having hit a plot snarl, usually a strenuous yoga class will occupy my conscious mind enough to let things work themselves out. But sometimes I’m just out of ideas, and it’s time to step away from the computer and go be around the people I love, maybe eat a vegetable. It’s hard to write when you don’t have things to write about. Sometimes you’ve got to let those build up.

You wrote a number of YA novels before Beach Read . What inspired your transition into adult fiction? What drew me to YA was probably my love of a good coming-ofage story. Teenagedom is such a highly transformative time, when you’re really figuring yourself out and you have to rearrange everything else in your life to accommodate this new you. Your relationships are put to the test. Your identity faces a trial by fire. There’s nothing like it.

The funny thing about writer’s block is, apparently I’m capable of writing 90,000 words about writer’s block.

Until you’re about thirty, when the exact same thing happens again. And then again, around sixty, so I hear, with plenty of big, transformative, coming-of-age moments sprinkled in between those ages and well beyond them. In my late twenties, I found myself asking all the same questions about myself and the world that I’d asked as a teen. I watched things I had taken as fundamental truths be called into question, and I wrestled with trepidation about the future. Excited might not be the right word, but I certainly felt very compelled to write about this second “coming-of-age,” and I also loved the way that aging up my characters widened my ability to write about relationships. Specifically, I knew I wanted Gus and January to have some history, and for that to happen, they simply needed to have had more time.

January and Gus take each other on research trips for their “challenge.” What kind of research did you do for Beach Read ? Luckily, this book was just meta enough that it wound up fairly research-light compared to other books I’ve written. I did have to do some research on cults, but honestly, that’s something I’m pretty much constantly reading about anyway, so no more research than usual. Other than that, the town of North Bear Shores is an amalgam of a few different little towns along Lake Michigan—Holland, Saugatuck, Grand Haven—but even when I’m working with a fictional setting, I base a lot of individual locations on real places, partly because it spares my imagination some work and partly because I think it makes a place feel more real when it’s loosely modeled on an existing place.

Most days I might feel more like an Augustus, but realistically, I think my journey hasn’t been so different from January’s.

Without giving anything away, what was one of your favorite scenes to write? Was there a scene that was particularly challenging? Oooh. I loved writing January and Gus’s first rom-com outing, but my favorite to write might have been Pete’s book club. Followed closely by any and every scene with Pete in it. As for most challenging, most of Gus’s field trips were a bit more challenging. They bring a darker edge to the book and I never wanted to the tip the book too far over into that, so balancing the darker themes with the levity was something I thought a lot about.

Are you more of a January or an Augustus, and why? Oof, this is a tough one. Most days I might feel more like an Augustus, but realistically, I think my journey hasn’t been so dif-

. . . I hope it leaves them feeling understood and cared for, like someone wrote a book just for them! ferent from January’s. An overzealous optimist to a crotchety cynic, and back to somewhere in the middle. Sometimes I have to actively choose to believe that there’s more to the story than that bleak midpoint, but it’s a choice I make whenever I’m able. Also I love outlandish shoes, a la January, but am really lazy about doing laundry, like Gus.

Beach Read is not just a love story, it’s also about grief and letting go. What do you hope readers take away from reading a story about characters like January and Gus? First, I hope it leaves them feeling understood and cared for, like someone wrote a book just for them! Beyond that, I guess I hope it makes readers call or text the people they love just to say so, and to push in instead of pulling away when things get hard. That’s not too much to ask of one book, is it?

LEARN MORE ABOUT EMILY HENRY Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram: @EmilyHenryWrites.