Poppy Wright has cracked the code of conquering ambitions and living the life of her dreams. Her passion for traveling, combined with skilled storytelling, has made her blog a tremendous success. Thus, it paved the way to establish herself as a staff writer with one of the leading publications in the travel and tourism industry. Alex Nilsen, on the other hand, continued his education beyond degree level and decided to be an English teacher in his hometown. He is content with his career choice and his decision to take further education without straying far away from his hometown.
However, Poppy feels that her life is stagnant and stuck in a constant loop. Although her wild wanderlust days are not far behind her, she is looking beyond travelling randomly to exotic places where she fails to make any real-life connections. At such times, her thoughts always go back to her and Alex’s summer trips, which they have been planning and taking since their college years. These trips began on a shoestring budget and gradually progressed to luxury vacations, thanks to Poppy’s job as a successful travel writer.
Alex also reminisces about their summer trips, especially their carefree days spent together, Poppy’s meticulous planning for their annual trips, and her attempts to bring him out of his shell. Unlike her, Alex is more subdued, serious, and self-aware about his life. As the eldest son of his family, he knows how to shoulder difficult responsibilities from a young age by keeping his expectations to a minimum and prioritizing his familial bonds over anything else. That’s why he has moved back to their common hometown of Linfield, Ohio. The same town that Poppy left as soon as she could due to childhood bullying and successive traumatic experiences resulting from it.
To the author’s credit, she knows how to build an atmosphere with limited characters without wavering focus from the protagonists and develop a romantic connection steadily. The same can be observed in this novel, where the author creates enough drama and tension as a residue for Poppy’s and Alex’s last trip to Croatia, hinting at the reasons and aftermath of that disastrous vacation. Therefore, viewers start building expectations about the leading pair’s buzzing interactions while building anticipation about their impromptu summer trip to Palm Springs.
This entire premise of building a backstory of Alex and Poppy through their summer trips of the past till the ruined Croatia vacation is a brilliant idea. It gives enough depth and adds sufficient drama for the vividly narrated Palm Springs trip. It also helps in constructing a narrative around the underlying romance between them, which comes bubbling out in the desert heat and renders a whole new dimension to these best friends’ lives. This part is full of good penmanship and atmospheric writing to keep readers hooked till the very last line.
I would highly recommend this book for fans of romance, romantic tropes, and lovers of dramatic literary content. Go for it because you will love the People You Meet On Vacations.