by Emily Henry ★★★★☆
After stumbling upon Emily Henry's Book Lovers (her 3rd book, but the first I read from her) and enjoying it to the point that it made a surprise appearance at #9 on my "Best of 2022" list, I've been a fan. She's opened up my appreciation for a genre that in the past I normally would not seek out, and her heartwarming and typically laugh-out-loud romance novels are something to look forward to each year.
Funny Story opens with Daphne Vincent unceremoniously being evicted from the home that she shares with her fiancé, Peter, after he cheated on her with his lifelong best friend, Petra, at his bachelor party. Short on friends in the northern Michigan town where they had been living (Daphne moved there specifically for Peter) and in need of an immediate place to stay, she finds herself moving in with Petra's ex-boyfriend Miles in a bizarro partner swap. Daphne has no interest in Miles (or anyone, for that matter), given the fresh emotional scars of the dissolution of her engagement.
Miles, for his part, is not exactly presenting an alluring alternative. He is embroiled in a deep depression after his breakup with Petra, and he spends his days getting high, listening to sappy music, and watching Bridget Jones's Diary on repeat in his bedroom. Miles and Daphne pass like ships in the night in their shared two-bedroom apartment, barely exchanging more than a few words. Daphne would love nothing more than to leave town, but she feels obligated to stay until the completion of a read-a-thon she is coordinating at the local library (she is the children's librarian). And so a long summer of counting down the days until she can leave commences.
This is where the one major plot flaw (and it's a doozy) enters. Because they've been lifelong friends, Peter and Petra decide to swiftly get married (okay, fine), and for some wholly unexplained reason, they send invitations to both Miles and Daphne. Wait...what?!? There is no planet where this makes sense, two months after ripping the hearts out of both exes, and Henry gives no plausible explanation. It can't be sent by mistake (since it's not like they were individually on the guest list of the original wedding), and no one would ever think it a kindness to flaunt a replacement relationship in front of the predecessors. Daphne and Miles decide to RSVP as a couple, and then boost the fake narrative by taking some convincing selfies and posting those to social media. That revenge plot could have happened without the wedding invite, and I just can't understand how no one talked Henry out of that unbelievable choice.
As co-conspirators, Daphne and Miles begin to form a friendship, and it doesn't take a genius to see where this might go. Like with her previous novel Happy Place, Henry explores some additional themes beyond a budding romance -- including difficulty forming friendships, parental absenteeism, and child neglect -- that give our two main characters plenty of obstacles to overcome beyond the dual heartache at the end of their last relationship. Those themes add some emotional layers to a love story and also provide plenty of baggage to put Daphne's and Miles's nascent relationship at risk. Will they be able to overcome that? Or will Henry upset the apple cart on the romance playbook to the point that they don't end up together in the end?
Funny Story has all of the elements of a Henry romance novel that her fans have come to love, and outside of that aforementioned unexplainable plot flaw, it again shows that Henry has a rich talent for getting readers to fall in love with her characters while those characters fall in love with each other. The trademark humor is there, although with fewer laugh-out-loud moments in this one than in Book Lovers, and like Happy Place, Henry once again tackles friendship, this time layering in some difficult family dynamics more than in her previous novels. It may not be her very best, but it's still an enjoyable escape.
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