Emily Henry cracked the modern romance novel.
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So she woke up early before work and started churning out a YA novel.
Henry wrote four books in three years, teenage coming-of-age stories full of darkish magic realism.
I was not doing great, she says.
I wasnt properly medicated at the time, which was part of it.
I was just so stressed out and anxious.
Shed always preferred darker stories and sci-fi to explore existential questions, but suddenly she couldnt bear the darkness.
She had writers block, so she decided to try her hand at something lighter.
It was just my secret little thing I would go into my office and write, she says.
Naturally, they fall in love (and finish their books).
I dont feel ashamed of that.
Even when she didnt.
When Henry started writing it, she saved the document as Beach Read.
A lot can happen in a two-year span.
Millennials had tried decorating with soft pink throw pillows and basic acts of maintenance they called adulting.
In fact, they loved it.
And whenBeach Readfinally came out in May 2020, those young readers put their hearts in Henrys hands.
She has since sold 2.4 million books collectively and spent a cumulative 145 weeks on the New YorkTimesbest-sellers list.
Two of her books,Book LoversandPeople We Meet on Vacation, were recently optioned for films.
Her fourth romance novel,Happy Place,comes out next month.
Shes already working on her fifth.
Love is embarrassing.Every aspect of it requires maximum humiliation.
It is embarrassing to receive it, to open yourself up to it.
Simps!People who want to gaze and smile and sigh and melt.
Who feel a spark and sit with it long enough to let it catch fire.
Who luxuriate in silences and sexual tension.
Its all so cringey!
To call someone your person.
To be caught singing a little song because youre in love.
Or doing a little dance … together?
Having your special lil nook under their arm?
Tearing up over gestures both grand and mundane?
Oh my God, kindly, wow, nope, dont look at me.
Is there a witness-protection program for little bitches?
But thats the joy of romance, exclaims Henry.
Sex is funny and embarrassing.
She finished that first manuscript in six weeks, writing so quickly she left sentences unfinished.
She will later DM me to apologize for making a mediocre espresso.
Shes like the coolest friend at the Nashvegas bachelorette party.
She posts photos of Dottie with self-deprecating captions that insinuate the dog thinks shes a dumb human.
She likes bright and whimsical prints and red lipstick and bold winged eyeliner.
She was slightly mortified that she seemed so boring.
Henry has since realized that this accessibility and familiarity, bordering on basic, is sort of her superpower.
Her characters talk like she talks.
(Is there anything better than iced coffee and a bookstore on a sunny day?
They shop at Trader Joes.
You sense that, like Henry, they absolutely listen to Taylor Swift.
Its always a different reason.
She was worried that readers would be annoyed that January was so emotional and cried a lot.
But theres always women who relate to it.
Shell rotate couches when she wants a different view: the fire, the yard.
Sometimes shell move to the guest bedroom, where theres a walking treadmill and some hand weights.
She points out titles in Polish, French, Italian, and Spanish.
Its my version ofDuolingo, she jokes.
Shes sort of waiting for the flop.
Romance is a parachute-size genre, big enough to fit any and all desires.
Henry was discovering this subgenre just as Guillorys books were gaining mainstream popularity.
L. JamesandFifty Shades of Greyhad waned.
These were the books drawing in new readers.
These stories go on to declare that this is not their mothers romance.
In some cases, though, it is.
What it isnt is their mothers attitude toward romance.
These new readers dont need to be convinced its okay to read about love.
Koch points out that the collective consciousness of misogyny in general has created a better environment for romance.
These readers are also expanding the philosophical and political benefits of reading books with kissing.
Emotions make people antsy.
I think it makes them uncomfortable to think about love with any seriousness.
A Henry fan, Basker tells me what she really responds to is Henrys ability to be earnest.
That earnestness and sincerity is the thing that sparks off the page, Basker says.
You dont have romance without earnestness and optimism and sincerity.
It just doesnt work.
A romance requires a central love story and a happy ending.
Koch adds a third requirement: The author and the publisher have tosayits a romance.
There was very little explicit sex, but you knew everyone was getting laid.
Its like we lost rom-coms in the film space, and now theyre getting a chance to live again.
Its mostly a name change, Younger continues.
There are some updates to how the stories are being told and what the characters are doing.
What was relegated to chick lit in literary fiction is a gateway to romance.
Ive lived here for years.)
Claire McLaughlin, a.k.a.
She points to one friend who previously read only super-hard-core history stuff but now identifies as an EmHen fan.
Is it the banter?
The steady, nice men who see a therapist?
Books where the hero goes to therapy are peoples favorite, says Koch.
You have to read this.
The hero is so cute.
There was even that whole craze where they were like, Women need love, and men need respect.
I need both, and if Im choosing, I maybe even need respect more.
Henrys not trying to subvert these tropes, just wink at them.
Caldwell understands the appeal of the relationships Henry creates.
Theyre really nonconfrontational and unproblematic.
@salty_caroline_reads, a San Antonio BookToker.
Emily Henry isnt who she goes to for sex.)
Then comes the yearning, the heat-filled kisses before you wait to retrieve a condom.
Its a romance that has to be safe before it can be passionate.
), this offering of normal and supportive love is its own kind of radical.
Love, after all, was often made not of shiny things but practical ones.
Ones that grew old and rusted only to be repaired and polished, she writes inBeach Read.
I can imagine reading that for the first time feels exciting, says Caldwell.
Where do we learn to love?
For Henry, her philosophy of love came from watching her parents read.
My dad would do all the characters voices, she says.
He still does that for my mom.
Her mother and father worked at the phone company.
But she also remembers the pervasive feeling in the 90s that girlhood was just embarrassing, she says.
And liking things that were deemed traditionally feminine air quotes was not cool.
She was 7, maybe 8, when she had her first crush.
I wrote him a note that was probably like a Do you like me?
His mom found it in his backpack and for some reason called my mom.
And its like,Why?
We were tiny children.
I dont understand what the intent was.
Maybe she thought it was cute.
She did, though they were mostly boys.
That ended when, at 18, she met her husband, a touring musician.
We met when we were babies, but we dated for a long time before we got married.
I highly advise it because we were totally different people from when we started dating.
Now shes almost guilty over how much she loves their life together.
Sorry, he says, moving as fast as possible through the living room.
Im just putting away the Green Chef.
And then, just as suddenly, he is gone.
Its the most golden-retriever-ish hero Ive ever written.
Just a very nice man.
I feel like as we get older, we appreciate nice people way more.
She thinks a beat.
Its actually very Freudian, she jokes.
My grandpa is that magic grandpa where youre like, Youre so nice.
You thought to be smart, you should like things that are basically marketed toward men.
Henrys next book,Happy Place,will be released in hardcover and has sprawling intersecting story lines.
Its a book that seems to be taking Henry further away from the genre.
She uses flashbacks and an ensemble of friends that each have clearly defined trajectories.
The love will sneak up on you.
Im just trying to trick people into reading them because their lives are going to be better for it.
Thats my big master plan.
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