Book Lovers

by Emily Henry

That’s the thing about women. There’s no good way to be one. Wear your emotions on your sleeve and you’re hysterical. Keep them tucked away where your boyfriend doesn’t have to tend to them and you’re a heartless bitch.

Mom’s theory was that youthful skin would make a woman more money (true in both acting and waitressing), good underwear would make her more confident (so far, so true), and good books would make her happy (universal truth), and we’ve clearly both packed with this theory in mind.

I loved those nights. They taught me that heartbreak, like most things, was a solvable puzzle.

“I’m not talking about you at all,” he says. “I’m talking about Nadine Winters. My fictional crush.”

“Or maybe, Nora Stephens, I can read you like a book.” I scoff. “Because you’re so socially intelligent.” “Because you’re like me.”

Is there anything better than iced coffee and a bookstore on a sunny day? I mean, aside from hot coffee and a bookstore on a rainy day.

My mom used to say, You can’t control the passage of time, but you can soften its blow to your face.

“A good bookstore,” Charlie

I don’t feel like Nadine Winters when he’s this close. I feel like I’m sugar under a blowtorch, like he’s caramelizing my blood.

his rasp in my ear: It’s hard to think in words right now, Nora.

“Until you got here,” he rasps, “all this place had ever been was a reminder of the ways I was a disappointment, and now you’re here, and—I don’t know. I feel like I’m okay. So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,’ then I’m the wrong kind of man.”

Sometimes, even when you start with the last page and you think you know everything, a book finds a way to surprise you.