How I Annotated Gardens and Flowers in Beach Read by Emily Henry

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Spoiler Warning: This is a complete annotation guide for the gardens and flowers with quotes and page numbers.

Gardens of many types feature prominently in scenes of Beach Read by Emily Henry. Important things happen in Pete’s backyard garden, at the Olive Garden, and at the site of a fictional cult called New Eden.

Flowers, more so than gardens, are symbolic, especially when it comes to the longevity of January’s romantic relationships. Having ephemeral cut flowers in vases (that die) are a marker of January’s finished relationship with Jacques. In contrast, a conversation about life and blooming, living wildflowers that Gus and January have inspires the ending of January’s book. Those wildflowers get immortalized on the page.


You’ll need 28 tabs of the same color to annotate gardens and flowers in Beach Read by Emily Henry.

One of these tabs will be for you tab key. Pick a highlighter and/or pen that coordinates with your chosen tab color to mark the quotes and margins too.

1. TAB Ch 1, p 4

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“..the cornflower blue shingles and snow-white trim…”

2. TAB Ch 3, p 33

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

  • Legal name’s Posy…Does anyone look like a Posy?
  • “Maybe, like, a baby wearing a polyester flower costume.”

3. TAB Ch 5, p 47

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“Pete’s garden was, quite possibly, the most picturesque place I’d ever been…”

4. TAB Ch 5, p 48

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“It was called POCKETFUL OF POSIES, but I’d scratched POSIES out and written PETE’S in its place.

5. TAB Ch 7, p 58

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

…alone in the garden.”

6. TAB Ch 7, p 78

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…the smile blooming across my face.”

7. TAB Ch 9, p 82

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…the rose-speckled kettle..”

8. TAB Ch 10, p 105

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…New Eden…”

(optional: tab all New Eden mentions)

9. TAB Ch 11, p 109

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“I picked through buckets of cut flowers, longing for the days when I could afford a bundle of daisies for the kitchen, calla lilies for the nightstand in the bedroom.”

10. TAB Ch 11, p 118

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…grand gestures and freshly cut flowers in handmade vases, that had held us together for so long..”

11. TAB Ch 12 “The Olive Garden,” p 125

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

The chapter title “The Olive Garden

12. TAB Ch 12, p 143

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…the rose-colored glasses ground to dust.”

13. TAB Ch 14, p 147

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…holding hands under at table at Olive Garden.”

14. TAB Ch 14, p 164

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…seeing through rose-colored glasses…”

15. TAB Ch 16, p 176

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…Dave? Of Olive Garden fame?”

16. TAB Ch 16, p 183

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“For the thorny jumble of feelings today had stirred up in me.”

17. TAB Ch 18, p 211

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…or pulling weeds side by side in the garden…”

18. TAB Ch 21, p 255

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…the center of their whimsical garden…”

“…you and Rose…”

19, TAB Ch 21, p 256

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

Rose? Pete’s real name was Posy, a little bouquetRose must’ve been her sister, Gus’s mom.”

20. TAB Ch 21, p 260

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“I always liked that thought, the way two people really did seem to grow into one. Or at least two overlapping parts, trees with tangled roots.”

20. TAB Ch 21, p 261

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

  • “…a beautiful bouquet in her hands.”

21. TAB Ch 23, p 294

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE (ALL ON THIS PAGE):

“Like if we added up all the—all the shit and all the wildflowers, the world would come out positive.”

“Bad things don’t dig down through your life until the pit’s so deep that nothing good will ever be big enough to make you happy again. No matter how much shit, there will always be wildflowers. There will always be Petes and Maggies and rainstorms in forests and sun on waves.”

23. TAB Ch 24, p 305

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“Of course it wasn’t snow. It was pollenWhite wildflowers had sprung up on either sideof the road, the wind shaking their buds out into itself. Eleanor wondered where she was going next, and what the flowers would look like there.”

24. TAB Ch 24, p 311

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“Maybe that was what had been there all along, masked in thornier emotions.”

25. TAB Ch 26, p 333

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“…a hug that was all rose water and coconut oil.”

26. TAB Behind the Book, p 367

HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:

“A thorny, messy, heartbroken woman with a lush, meaningful story.”