People We Meet on Vacation

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. How did you respond to the revelation about Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen’s drunken kiss? How did the discovery of the friends’ Croatia trip impact your understanding of Poppy and Alex’s two-year separation?

2. The novel explores the disparity between dreams and reality. How do your personal dreams compare and contrast to Poppy’s? Have your dreams had a similar impact on your regard for reality?

3. How does Poppy’s dating history compare and contrast with your own romantic experiences?

4. Poppy’s love for travel dictates much of the narrative trajectory. How does Poppy’s peripatetic lifestyle relate to your own regard for home, happiness, and the future?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Henry’s novel is a contemporary take on Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally (1989). Discuss the differences and similarities between Ephron’s film and Henry’s novel. How do Henry’s representations of romance and sex, femininity and masculinity offer an alternate take on dating culture and gender presentation? Has Henry successfully updated the 1989 story?

2. The novel explores the millennial generation’s pattern of delaying sociocultural landmarks. How does Henry’s take on the “slow-burn” romance relate to the millennial experience? What are the emotional and psychological effects of Poppy and Alex’s decisions to delay marriage and the prospect of parenthood?

3. Instead of casting Poppy and Alex as stereotypical representations of women and men, Henry casts the protagonists as complex individuals. How do Poppy and Alex’s respective pasts relate to their identities in the present? How do trauma, loss, and heartbreak inform their sense of self? Consider how their experiences relate to the loneliness epidemic and contemporary conversations on mental health.

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. The novel alternates between past and present timelines. How do these timelines inform one another and create narrative tension? How do they contribute to the novel’s themes about memory, trauma, and the past?

2. Compare and contrast Nora and Alex. How do their differences and similarities relate to the “opposites-attract” and “friends-to-lovers” romance tropes?

3. Discuss the symbolic significance of vacation throughout the novel. How does each of the novel’s settings create a different narrative atmosphere? How do these atmospheres impact Poppy and Alex in different ways? 

4. Home is a predominant motif throughout the novel. Explore Poppy and Alex’s definitions of and relationships to the concept of home. Be sure to consider how the characters relate to New York versus Linfield. How do these settings impact their psyches, and why?

5. Poppy is a popular influencer. How does her online activity relate to her experiences in real life? How does social media affirm and/or challenge her true self?