People We Meet On Vacation will be Netflix's biggest rom-com of the year. You need to read it first.

Emily Henry is a name that either means nothing or everything to you. 

She's an American author specialising in telling the most delicious and witty (and gut-wrenching) love stories, from her beloved smash Beach Read to her sleeper-hit Funny Story.

Her legion of fans sing her praises from TikTok to book clubs around the world, passionately arguing about which novel is her best or which leading man they'd want to marry in real-life. For me, the answer is Charlie Lastra from Book Lovers. Because I am very Nora Stephens-coded. 

But actually, the very best leading man from any of her books is Alex Nielsen from People We Meet On Vacation. And I mean that. Because he's the one you'd see your friend fall head over heels with and you'd be like… 'hell yeah'. As someone who has seen her fair share of 'hell no' men in this world, that's saying something.

And Alex Nielsen is about to become everyone's favourite leading man, when the story hits our screens, courtesy of Netflix. 

Who is in the People We Meet On Vacation cast?

In the film adaptation, Alex will be played by Tom Blyth — he of platinum blonde hair in The Hunger Games: A Tale of Songbirds and Snakes. But this is him with his regular brown hair. A diva!

Tom Blyth stars as Alex Nielsen in People We Meet On Vacation. Image: Getty.

But that's enough about our hottie male main character. Who will star alongside him as our leading lady, Poppy Wright? That would be My Lady Jane actress Emily Bader.

If Alex Nielsen is the sweet and reliable rom-com man of our dreams, Poppy Wright is the quintessential quirky rom-com gal who throws Alex off-kilter with her wild child ways. And their chemistry is on a whole different level. Which made casting these two roles an impossible task. Almost.

"I've been kind of an anxious wreck about who would play these characters," Emily Henry told Netflix. "But I truly could not feel more confident that my readers and then so many more people who don't even know about the book are going to completely fall in love with Poppy and Alex."

"I watched [Emily and Tom's] chemistry read four times in 12 hours and I loved it more every single time," Henry said of her leads. "The very first time I was laughing out loud, and I got so emotional by the end."

Blyth and Bader are joined in the film by Jameela Jamil (The Good Place), Sarah Catherine Hook (The White Lotus), Lucien Laviscount (Emily In Paris), Lukas Gage (The White Lotus), Alan Ruck (Succession) and comedy legend Molly Shannon.

Now this is how you cast a romantic comedy. 

Watch the moment Emily Bader found out she booked the role. Story continues below.

What is People We Meet On Vacation about?

I highly recommend reading the book, but if you'd like a little teaser, here is what you need to know.

Poppy (Bader) and Alex (Blyth) have been best friends for a decade, after meeting in their freshman year of college.

While she's a free-spirited enigma with an insatiable sense of wanderlust, he's a routine-loving teacher who would rather curl up with a good book. Every year, the unlikely duo take off on a summer vacation to a new destination — often taking on fake personas as they travel the world together. 

Two years prior to the events of the book, the pair have a mysterious and very very bad falling out. Coming to terms with their schism through a series of flashbacks, the reader comes to know the ins and outs of their changing relationship from past to present. 

Attempting to rekindle their friendship, Poppy asks Alex to join her on one last trip to Palm Springs. And as you might expect, tensions ensue. And not the bad kind. The sexy kind, of course. Which is a terrible sentence and one I hope to never type again. Onwards!

People We Meet On Vacation book vs movie.

While the screen adaptation is set to follow a similar storyline to the original material, there will obviously need to be some changes made to condense a delightfully detailed 365-page book into a casual 90-minute movie.

Now, I say the words 'Netflix rom-com' and I know what you're thinking. As much as we love them, Netflix has a habit of producing 'so bad it's good' romantic comedies, like Christmas flicks or Hallmark movies.

However, we need not look further than 2024's smash-hit Nobody Wants This to know Netflix can and will produce a certified banger when the situation calls for it. And People We Meet On Vacation promises to be very good.

Emily Bader will be a charming rom-com lead as Poppy. Image: Getty.

Firstly, there's a banger cast of talented actors with the necessary chops to pull off the charisma, tension and joy this kind of movie requires.

Secondly, Emily Henry herself says her set-visits were beyond her wildest dreams. And she said the film changed how she saw her own characters from the novel. Intrigue!

"I was lucky enough to get to do some set visits, so I got to see it in real life and knew that it worked. It's just as good as we could have possibly hoped. But getting to actually see a cut of the movie, they've changed the characters in my head, which I think is the sign of a really great movie," she recently told E! News.

Emily continued, "it's not like they're different people. But they embodied the characters in a way that they shifted for me slightly and became more 'Tom' and 'Emily' than they were when I initially wrote the book.

"I think readers are going to feel the same way. I think they're going to love Alex and Poppy, and they're going to love Tom and Emily as Alex and Poppy," she added.

Girl, I can't wait for this.

People We Meet On Vacation movie release date.

There's no confirmed release date for People We Meet On Vacation just yet. HOWEVER, a number of lucky Netflix users who are part of the streamers' preview audience have been posting videos on TikTok claiming to have seen it — which means we shouldn't be too far away from a premiere date. EEP.

In the meantime, here's my guide to the very best rom-coms to watch.

Feature Image: Getty/Penguin.