Welcome back to Tunes-A-Million, where I share some of my favorite books and the songs that fit them best. Every two weeks, I’ll pick a new book, and you can read along (or not).
Our second book is Happy Place by Emily Henry, the most recent work of TikTok’s favorite rom-com author. I find no shame in enjoying what is popular (there’s a reason it’s popular), but I am incredibly proud that I read Emily Henry before it was cool. My mom gave me People We Meet on Vacation, and I was hooked. My personal favorite novel of Henry’s is Book Lovers, but Happy Place is fighting hard for that top spot. It came out around finals time last year, making it my reward for finishing the semester. I read it in one night.
What I have always loved about Emily Henry is her ability to create captivating characters with little quirks that make them feel real. Harriet Kilpatrick and Wyn Connor feel like people I could know, having met in college as part of a large friend group formed by the inevitable game of roommate musical chairs that happens when people study abroad and graduate early. Their relationship stays strong, as does their friendship, until adult responsibilities, medical residencies, and family emergencies strain Harriet and Wyn. The strain becomes too much for their romantic relationship, but they have to convince their friends otherwise on one last trip to their friend Sabrina’s coastal cottage in Maine.
Wyn and Harriet grow up alongside each other, navigating college, their first apartments, and even cross-country moves together. Together, they find out who they are as adults and are the first people they can truly confide in. Harriet tells Wyn about the pressures she feels to be perfect, knowing she is the glue that holds her parents’ marriage together. In return, Wyn tells Harriet about his fears of being undeserving of people’s love. In a sense, they were each other’s therapy, breaking down decades-long barriers and giving Harriet a family she didn’t have to fight to keep together. It makes me think of Maisie Peters’ song, “Therapy.” Under the poppy beat hides deep lyrics about the betrayal of an ended relationship that was supposed to be the singer’s last relationship. They broke down serious barriers and made forever promises, yet she ended up exactly where he promised she would never be: needing the emotional support of therapy.
While factors that are out of Harriet and Wyn’s control are what ultimately drive them together before the book starts, the more they confront each other for the first time since their breakup, it becomes abundantly clear that their biggest obstacle was trying to protect the other person from what they thought was unlovable about themselves. Their conversations read like the sung dialogue in “The Alcott (feat. Taylor Swift)” by The National. The song’s harmony and lyrics feel like a dancelike conversation between two people whose insecurities overpower the love that others are offering them. While Swift sings, “Everything that’s mine is a landmine,” lead vocalist Matt Berninger sings, “It’s the last thing I wanted,” reflecting their internal conflicting feelings that compete with how the other remembers their relationship and goals to move forward. There’s hope within the lyrics, with both grappling with feelings of falling back in love with the other despite the doubts that cloud their minds.
Wyn and Harriet having to see each other for the first time since their engagement ended always would have been a challenge, but doing it unexpectedly and as part of a scheme concocted by their closest friends complicates things. Spending one last weekend at Sabrina’s beach cottage brings a flurry of emotions, creating a perfect storm of passion and nostalgia between Wyn and Harriet. It’s reminiscent of Inhaler’s “Perfect Storm,” where there’s something in the room Wyn and Harriet are forced to share for the weekend that drives home their feelings for each other and solidifies their love for each other despite their previous challenges. The weekend creates the perfect atmosphere for their lives to shift back into place, allowing them to reform their relationship in the eye of the hurricane that existed in the world around them and had broken them down before.
If you haven’t read Emily Henry’s Happy Place or any of her work, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. And, if you’re sick of Tunes-A-Million’s current fixation on rom-com novels, you’ll enjoy next week’s review/playlist for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s a long-time favorite of mine and a bit of a pivot from what we’ve read thus far.
