Funny Story

My previous experience with Emily Henry through Happy Place had left me quite disappointed, it lacked the usual mildly comedic charm and it fully relied on characters refusing to talk about anything with one another. As such, I was hesitant about reading Funny Story; thankfully it’s an improvement over Happy Place but it doesn’t get as good as Emily Henry’s earlier works and it goes through the romcom motions so predictably and at time stupidly that it ends on a disappointment note despite most of the story being quite good.

The premise is arguably the book’s strongest aspect, two people get suddenly dumped only for their exes to get together and now they have to awkwardly live with each other, it’s a perfect situation for a romance story with a clear “us vs them” set up. It also allows to quickly assign characters personalities, Peter and Petra both being social butterflies obsessed with how they’re being seen and make sure they always come out as the “good guys” even when they cheat on their partners and Miles and Daphne, the outcasts with family issues who have to patch things together. Unfortunately whilst each character gets a couple extra bits to define them, Daphne gets the short end of the stick. She is a children’s librarian who cares both about books and children (because that’s her job) and she…moans on food? It’s a weird quirk of her character that she has to moan in a sexually suggestive way whenever she eats, something that happens frequently and for some reason its sexual connotation is always highlighted whenever it happens. It’s an odd thing to put the focus on given that no matter how many words spent on it, it doesn’t make it a deep and interesting personality trait. Her book love could have been interesting to develop but the author decided not to, it’s mentioned that books were a refuge for her as a child for when her father abandoned her but in the present time she is rarely engaged with books outside of her job. She doesn’t have a favourite genre, she doesn’t have a favourite book, she rarely if at all reads, and the read-a-thon, her big library summer project is relegated to being a mcguffin when it could have been a key component in resolving the disappointingly predictable romcom end drama.

I know people (and I am people) read books like these because they are predictable, we go in expecting a happily ever after and we expect some sort of dramatic twist at the 80ish percent mark, usually right after the characters confess their love to each other and/or have sex. I don’t particularly like it, I think if you can compellingly bring a story to a happy ending with 300 pages, you don’t need to add some dramatic twist to milk out another 50 pages but it’s usually a way of addressing character flaws and reinforcing the just created relationship. Unfortunately, Funny Story has its dramatic moment once more rely on the idiocy of characters refusing to talk to one another; more than that, it relies on Daphne refusing to let Miles talk which feels quite contrived and makes Daphne quite dislikable in the moment especially since she has so little personality to like otherwise.

Frustratingly, there is little positive for me to highlight despite the book being overall competent and if it weren’t for the botched drama and Daphne’s underdeveloped character it would be a very solid 7.5/10 “enjoyable but not memorable” book. There a couple of nice touches, one character is crystal believing, psychic following and astrology obsessed which at first seems like the set up of the usual joke at the expense of that character but they turn out to be quite pleasant despite their controversial beliefs, the setting is generally more modern including more casual mentions of “geek culture” and the legalisation of cannabis in the US, it definitely feels like a 2024 book rather than the usual nondescript contemporary setting.

It’s fine is the bottom line, it makes sense for Daphne to want to be with Miles, it makes a bit less sense for Miles to want to be with Daphne because Daphne isn’t really a character (probably to facilitate reader self insert), but it is a charming romance, it doesn’t overly rely on physical attractiveness or sex for its romance to build up and it’s fun enough to be a good time in a pinch.