BOOK REVIEW: FUNNY STORY by EMILY HENRY

The new Emily Henry novel is here and I read it and it was…fine? There were some standout moments, and overall it definitely wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t have that spark for me. I liked Daphne and Miles together, their dynamic was nice (damned with faint praise), but it just didn’t feel romantic in a way that ever swept me off my feet or garnered any strong reactions from me. Actually, I feel like all my thoughts on this book might as well be summed up by: [character/relationship/dynamic/story] was [fine/okay], but it just never won me over–every somewhat positive thing I have to say about this book is always followed by a “but.”

The Emily Henry novels I’ve loved have been the angsty ones–People We Meet on Vacation and Happy Place–and Funny Story is just so sorely lacking in angst. There is simply not enough tension between Miles and Daphne. They more or less like each other from the start, *and* they’re very touchy-feely with each other also from the start, *and* they live with each other so they literally see each other and/or hang out every single day. All of this meant that I was missing the tension/angst/yearning/pining of it all, i.e. the stuff that makes a romance compelling to me. (This is basically the same problem I had with Book Lovers, except that there’s more of the romance in Funny Story than there was in Book Lovers, which felt more like contemporary fiction than romance to me.)

Some other qualms: the plot felt meandering (it sort of just plods along with little sense of purpose until the last third) and I really Did Not Care for the side characters–they felt very ~Cooky~ in a forced way that put me off, and they were a not insignificant part of the story.

Perhaps I overhyped this for myself (I definitely did) after loving Happy Place so much, but I can’t help but be disappointed. Funny Story was fine, a perfectly forgettable and lukewarm “fine.” In terms of where it sits in the Emily Henry oeuvre: my favs are still PWMOV and Happy Place–those are the only two novels of hers that I’ve truly loved. The others I feel whatever about. Funny Story ranks the highest of them (followed by Book Lovers then Beach Read), but that’s not really saying much since they’re all of a piece to me tbh.