People We Meet on Vacation is top of Netflix - but BookTok fans have one criticism

It may be winter, but a BookTok-to-film holiday romance adaptation is hotting up the Netflix charts right now.

People We Meet on Vacation is based on the popular New York Times Bestseller of the same name by Emily Henry and first film adaptation of one of Henry’s novels, which has since debuted at No.1 on the Netflix film chart with 17.2m views, according to Deadline.

"Poppy (Emily Bader) wants to explore the world and Alex (Tom Blyth) prefers to stay home with a good book, but somehow they are the best of friends. They live far apart, but for a decade, they have spent one week of summer vacation together," the film's synopsis reads.

The romance book has been a bit hit with BookTok - the large community of people who discuss books on the social media platform TikTok, and so readers were intrigued to see how the story would be adapted to the screen.

However, there is one point that fans are making about the adaptation - and not all of them are happy about what was included, and not included, in the film.

What are critics saying?

Netflix

Since its release on January 9, People We Meet on Vacation received a 76 per cent critics score and 78 per cent audience score on film and TV review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes and has a rating of 6.8 out of 10 on IMDb.

"Altogether, People We Meet On Vacation is a wildly entertaining and heartwarming romantic comedy that's perfect for fans of the genre, those who've read Henry's original novel and anyone looking for a date night movie as we head into Valentine's Day season," Screen Rant's Molly Freeman wrote, giving it a nine out of 10.

The Telegraph's Robbie Collin said, "Basically, if you want to watch two attractive youngsters share a series of romantic near-misses across a string of idyllic holiday destinations, this film is for you," giving it three out of five stars.

The Guardian's Benjamin Lee gave the film two stars out of five. He said, "Emily Henry’s hit book has been adapted into a glossily made yet charmless attempt to resurrect the friends-to-lovers formula."

"You won’t cry bucketloads, but you'll end the movie feeling buoyed by the beautiful places and beautiful people and an escape into a world in which the painful process of falling in love does end actually in happiness," Digital Spy's Gabriella Geisinger noted in her three-star review.

Film sparks mixed reactions among book fans

As you can imagine, fans of the book had a lot of opinions about the film, while some praised how the actors Bader and Blyth embodied the roles of Poppy and Alex, some felt that a film wasn't the best format to tell the slow-burn friends-to-lovers love story.

Many also took issue with the amount of content that was not included in the movie.

One person said, "Couldn’t shake the feeling that People We Meet on Vacation would have worked better as a series(an episode for every vacation) allowing us more time to fall for Poppy and Alex so the emotional weight felt heavier when needed but still a fun watch!"

"People We Meet On Vacation was so good but they took out and changed up so much especially a lot of the backstory of why they both were the way they were: the bullying, her house, Alex’s parents, the cat. everything was fresh in mind so I was waiting for stuff that wasn’t coming," a second person wrote.

"PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION BEST ROMCOM OF THE CENTURY," a third person posted.

A fourth person added, "People We Meet on Vacation should've been a limited series they cut way too many scenes."

"Emily Bader and Tom Blyth walked onto the people we meet on vacation set and said we want to bring back classic romcoms, and that is exactly what they did!" a fifth person commented.

A viewer added, "Love Emily Henry books, love People We Meet on Vacation but I actually recoil inside every time a woman gives up her dream job with benefits in a big city for a relationship."

"I liked People We Meet on Vacation. It was an okay movie, however it would have been 10x better if I hadn’t just read the book. They cut out too much!! I really wanted the Tinder swiping scene."

"People We Meet on Vacation is proof some books should stay as books, but I do love Tom Blyth and Emily Bader," someone else shared.

"Deeply disappointed the I Only Have Eyes for You scene, and the Tinder scene was cut from the People We Meet on Vacation movie," one viewer reacted.

"Someone stop letting Netflix get their hands on book adaptations if they’re going to cut nearly every book scene out. People We Meet on Vacation was good, yes, but it could’ve been so much more."

Another person posted, "Can’t stop thinking about Poppy and Alex, People We Meet on Vacation altered my brain chemistry."

People We Meet on Vacation is now available to watch on Netflix.

Elsewhere from Indy100, 'BookTok' blamed for end of the world as TikTok gets into reading, and BookTok left reeling after major novel gets TV adaptation 'scrapped'.

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