Every Emily Henry Book, Ranked—From 'Beach Read' to 'Funny Story'
The best-selling author has reinvigorated our love for the romance novel with her whip-smart rom-coms.
When it comes to romance novels, Emily Henry, or “EmHen,” as the book community calls her, has the Midas touch. It’s been nothing but No. 1 bestsellers for the author since she cracked the genre wide open with 2020’s Beach Read.
Since switching her focus from the young adult novels she was previously penning to love stories, Henry has sold more than 10 million books worldwide, with five of her titles getting the book-to-screen adaptation treatment (and if Henry has her way, soon to be six). But where on Earth does one go to start reading?
Why, skip straight to the hits, of course! We've done the legwork to suss out Emily Henry's very best books in order, ranking exactly how each one stacks up, from her early works to her first star-crossed romance to her latest labor of love. Below are the best Emily Henry books, ranked.
The Best Emily Henry Books, Ranked
One of Henry’s lesser-known works, this young adult science fiction novel is also unlike anything most EmHen fans are likely to have read from the author. Exploring the fallout of a steel mill explosion in a small Ohio town through the eyes of the teens who live there, the book touches on the supernatural, with fans noting similarities to Netflix’s Stranger Things. Some found that this one fell short overall, however, noting that the characters—and the plot, for that matter—seemed a bit disjointed and overly ambitious.
For her fourth young adult novel, Hello Girls, Henry teamed with author Brittany Cavallaro, A.K.A. the best-selling brain behind the Charlotte Holmes mystery series. (Think: lady Sherlock Holmes.) The result? A wild ride of a read described as a teenage remake of Thelma and Louise. (It also showcases our favorite cover art of the bunch, but that’s neither here nor there.) Centered on two young women, Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce, who decide to rage against the patriarchy (and their humdrum lives) by hitting the open road in a stolen convertible, this one’s got a slower start, but once it gets moving, boy, does it ever.
A modern-day Romeo and Juliet, A Million Junes unpacks years of generational drama between two households, the O’Donnells and the Angerts. For Jack “June” O’Donnell, who has been spared the finer (or actually, any) details about her family's rift, it’s getting harder and harder to keep her distance from the enemy—particularly when he's so dang witty. Henry also throws in some ghosts, magic, and a bit of an existential crisis.
Love it or hate it, there’s something to be said for an author’s first book. For Henry, that was The Love That Split the World. A young adult story involving time travel, ghosts, folklore, and, of course, young love, Henry’s debut is hard to pigeonhole. It follows a young woman named Natalie who’s dealing with everything from strange visions and unaccounted-for chunks of time to normal teenage jitters that only a crush can induce. It’s the perfect introduction to the author, who appears to have hooked readers immediately with her “beautiful,” “wonderfully written,” and diverse prose.
Of Henry’s romance novels, Happy Place is among her most polarizing. One person who’s riding hard for it, though? Jennifer Lopez. The rom-com queen’s production company, Nuyorican, will tackle the on-screen version of this tale about two exes who agree to keep their broken-up relationship status under wraps from their dearest friends. (And spoiler alert? There’s some unfinished business between them.)
Great Big Beautiful Life is Henry’s sixth and most recent release. “This book is different than anything I’ve written before, but also feels like a really natural extension of what I’ve been doing the last few years," Henry told her newsletter subscribers. Translation? There’s an opposites-attract romance and a cast of quirky side-characters, but the stakes are a bit higher than previous Henry joints.
This time around, rival journalists—Alice, a staff writer at a fictional equivalent of Slate or The Cut, and Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize-winner—are competing to write the biography of Margaret Ives, a reclusive heiress who ruled the tabloids during her Old Hollywood heyday before vanishing from the public eye. Now, Ives is ready to explain why she left the limelight—but she’s keeping more secrets than either Alice or Hayden can uncover alone. Naturally, these two can’t help but get closer as their research intersects and deadlines approach.
Great Big Beautiful Life really shines when the focus turns away from Margaret’s larger-than-life personal history and into Alice’s assignment: The questions it raises for her about ambition, love, and the intersection between them are truly universal. –Halie LeSavage
The premise of this one may sound a little out there at first: Daphne, whose boyfriend just left her for a woman named Petra, seeks solace in the arms of the man who used to date Petra. (Is your head spinning?) But stranger things have happened! Funny Story is full of the charming, complex characters and chemistry that all EmHen fans love. However, it veers closer to a typical romance novel than her other books do, relying on the fake-dating trope and featuring more traditional romance scenes. Still, it lives up to its name: The dialogue and quirky characters will have you LOL-ing as they fall for each other, and you fall for their love story.
People We Meet on Vacation rounds out the top of the EmHen pack. Drawing upon Henry’s familiar themes of polar opposites who shouldn’t work on paper but somehow do in real life, it follows two besties, Poppy and Alex, whose extraverted and introverted worlds collide each year on their annual shared holiday. Naturally, their platonic love evolves into something more over time, making things a bit messy, and now, they’ve got to figure out just what they mean to each other. Essentially, it’s When Harry Met Sally... with little plastic drink umbrellas—a parallel Henry has all but made herself.
At some point, you’ve gotta learn to become the main character of your own life—which is the lesson of Book Lovers. Centered on a book-loving literary agent named Nora who's looking to shake up her routine with a sisterly trip to North Carolina, their vision for a charming, small-town meet-cute is thwarted by several less-than-pleasant run-ins with Charlie Lastra, an editor from Nora's old life back home. She and Charlie don’t seem to gel, yet fate keeps placing him in Nora’s path. It should be noted that while many readers tend to be satisfied with the protagonists’s chemistry and banter, they find themselves even more enchanted by yet another relationship in the book: the one between Nora and her little sister.
The adult romance novel that first put Henry on the map is also her most beloved. Fans still cite this tale of blooming love between two neighboring authors as an all-time fave. Recognizing how they approach their craft completely differently, January Andrews and Augustus “Gus” Everett decide to take a crack at writing with the others’s proverbial pen. Their resulting antics had author Colleen Hoover reading this book “backwards and then…bottom to top and then…all the even words and then…all the odd words and then… underwater,” as she wrote on Goodreads. Added Hoover: “Five stars! Emily Henry wrote this good.”
How to read Emily Henry's books in order
The order you read Emily Henry's books depends on how you’re looking to approach her collection. If you're brand new to the author, it may make sense to read them in the ranking order above.
If you want to go for the deep cuts, however, you could start with her young adult series, beginning with Henry’s first-ever book, The Love That Split the World, and working your way through the list below before diving into her romance novels.
- The Love That Split the World (2016)
- A Million Junes (2018)
- When the Sky Fell on Splendor (2019)
- Hello Girls (2019)
On the other hand, if you're a romance junkie, you can dive right into her popular love stories. Much like Taylor Swift, the millennial author has an affinity for planting Easter eggs in her prose, so you may want to read them in order of their release, which we've listed below:
- Beach Read (2020)
- People We Meet on Vacation (2021)
- Book Lovers (2022)
- Happy Place (2023)
- Funny Story (2024)
- Great Big Beautiful Life (2025)
Emily Henry attends the January 2026 premiere of People We Meet on Vacation.
When does Emily Henry's next book come out?
Emily Henry's next book, Modern Classic, is currently available for pre-order and due for release on April 7, 2027.
The plot and the cover have yet to be unveiled, but Henry has described the new read as a "pretty straightforward romantic comedy." However, she did tease at least part of its inspiration: "[It] kind of feels a little bit like my take on The Holiday in a very small way," she said, referring to the iconic 2006 Nancy Meyers Christmas movie.
In some ways, Modern Classic may diverge from EmHen's oeuvre. On a June 2026 appearance on Jenna Bush Hager's podcast, the author hinted that her next book will "explore something else a little bit." She said, "Still keep it romance, but I’m kind of trying to alternate between exploring new territory and...serving the readers what I think they’ve come to expect."
The sentiments echoed earlier comments she made on TODAY about her next project. "I'm excited to see what else is out there that would be fun to work on,” Henry shared. “At some point, I would love to revisit writing thrillers, but I am always going to love a love story.”
Emily Bader as Poppy and Tom Blyth as Alex in Netflix's People We Meet on Vacation.
Which Emily Henry books are being adapted into movies?
If you've read all of Henry's books and are eager for more, fear not: The majority of Henry's soon-to-be-seven adult novels have been or will soon be adapted into movies.
The first film based on one of the author's books, People We Meet on Vacation, premiered to high acclaim on Netflix in January 2026. Directed by Brett Haley and with a screenplay co-written by Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo, it sees Emily Bader (My Lady Jane) and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) bringing Poppy and Alex to life, with Sarah Catherine Hook, Lucien Laviscount, Jameela Jamil, Lukas Gage, and more in supporting roles.
Though Henry told The Los Angeles Times that she thought the film was "very good," she later expressed to Bloomberg that it strayed from her initial idea of how the film would look. “I understand now that it really ultimately won’t be my vision, and that’s okay,” she said.
People We Meet on Vacation marks the first of many EmHen movies to come.
Next up? Beach Read. Written and directed by People We Meet on Vacation co-writer Yulin Kuang, the film, which has cast Bridgerton's Phoebe Dynevor and Patrick Schwarzenegger as its leads, is set for a May 7, 2027, release date.
Henry addressed the divided reaction to the casting by fans, telling TODAY, ”It is our baby—the readers' and my baby—but it's also the filmmakers' baby and the studio's baby, and I'm along for the ride with the readers, and we just have to trust the vision.”
She also addressed potential changes to the storyline in an interview with Variety, saying, "It’s so different than I would have thought to approach it. It feels like a big swing, which I am all about, because I think the worst thing that a movie can be is boring and mediocre. If we’re doing this, let’s really go for it."
Also in the works are Book Lovers, which will be penned by former Girls writer Sarah Heyward; Funny Story, which Henry herself will write the screenplay for; and Happy Place, which was originally going to be developed as a TV show but is now going to be a movie produced by Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions. Like People We Meet on Vacation, Netflix will produce and release Funny Story and Happy Place.
No cast or release dates have been announced yet for these three films, though fans are already clamoring for Superman’s David Corenswet to take on Book Lovers' leading man, Charlie, opposite Dianna Agron, Simone Ashley, or Suki Waterhouse. While everything is still speculation, Henry isn’t mad at the suggestion. “Get him on board, and I’m in 💯,” she wrote in a comment per PEOPLE.
When it comes to Happy Place, Henry has teased who she envisions as the female lead. "For Harriet in Happy Place, I think Eve Hewson would be wonderful," she said to PEOPLE about the Bad Sisters and The Perfect Couple star. "She actually does look more or less how Harriet is in my head."
There may still be time to cast your votes, however. As Henry explained, “I always find it really fun to ask readers to do fan casting, and I do take those names that come up a lot into conversations with these teams.”
If Henry has her way, she'll also be bringing her latest book, Great Big Beautiful Life, to the big screen, but on her own terms. Bloomberg reported that she has “retained the rights to Great Big Beautiful Life, wrote a draft screenplay and is considering making it independently."
Henry also told Variety in January 2026 that it will be a while before there's life on that front, however: “We’ve met with a ton of wonderful producers, but ultimately, we decided to slow down on that, because we have these other things in the works," she said. "So we have not been letting anyone at Great Big Beautiful Life.
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From #Booktok favorites to acclaimed best-selling authors, we regularly rank just about any book you can imagine. Beach reads? We’ve done our homework. Smutty STEM novels? We've covered them, too. We’re methodical in our methods: combing through real-life reviews, seeing what fans are saying on Reddit, TikTok, and GoodReads, and, of course, actually reading the books. We simply love to read and keep up with what's trending in the book world—so you can focus on more important things, like devouring every single precious word.
