Book Review: Funny Story by Emily Henry
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Published: April 23rd 2024 by Penguin Viking
Rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)
Genres: Adult // Contemporary, Romance
Quick Thoughts: Stellar, profound, and full of the kind of searingly earnest romance that makes you kick your feet in the air with joy. Reading Emily Henry books are like a religious experience for me.
Reader Information:
This book contains sexual content and tackles Parental neglect and toxic relationships. Aimed at readers 18+.
I purchased this book myself. There was no obligation to post/give this book a certain rating. All views are my own. I remain entirely impartial.
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About This Book:
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it… right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic – with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads – Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex… right?
First Thoughts
If you know how much I adore Emily Henry’s books, you’ll know that I cleared my schedule to read Funny Story when it arrived. I had been slightly (okay, a lot) envious of the proof copies going around, so when my pre-order arrived I couldn’t wait to curl up on my sofa with a coffee and wrap myself in the comforting world of EmHen.
My Review
Daphne thought her life was finally perfect when she met Peter. She was in love, had a beautiful new home in his hometown, Waning Bay, Michigan, and her dream job as a children’s librarian. But her idyllic moment in heaven comes to an abrupt end, just shy of their wedding, when Peter announces he’s leaving Daphne for his female best friend, Petra—the woman everyone can’t help but love. Forced out of her home in a strange town with no one she knows, Daphne moves in with the only other person that understands her pain: Petra’s ex-boyfriend, Miles. And when an impromptu altercation makes Daphne falsely announce she and Miles are an item, much to Peter and Petra’s chagrin, they decide to pretend to be romantically involved just to spite their exes.
Through days spent reading to children and calls to her mother, Daphne reminds herself that right now is only temporary, and after the upcoming Read-a-Thon at her library, she can explore moving. But she and Miles become friends, tell-your-secrets-to friends, and through her guard beginning to lower, she even begins to make friends with her formerly-elusive colleagues at the library. Dare she say, they even become close friends, something she’s always struggled to find outside of her relationship with Peter, their mutual friends abandoning her with the split. Eager Miles sets out on a mission to show Daphne the beauty of Waning Bay, from his job at Cherry Hill winery to his favourite beach. He’s not what Daphne originally thought, firstly blinded by his desire for break-up ballads and ever-growing beard. The two of them lean on each other, sharing their heartbreak and deepest fears, until it’s clear their pretend closeness isn’t all for show anymore. And even though it’s what neither of them expected to find in their exes ex, it might just be the storybook ending Daphne and Miles have always wanted to find.
Overall, Funny Story was stellar, profound, and full of the kind of searingly earnest romance that makes you kick your feet in the air with joy. Reading Emily Henry books are like a religious experience for me, and I wholeheartedly believe that Funny Story is my new all-time favourite by her. There is always a love for literature in EmHen’s books, and Daphne’s passion for her library was heartwarming. I loved the depth shown in familial relationships, too, with Miles’s sister, and Daphne’s absent father. Emily manages to keep you reading pages well into the night, her words like a siren song that are impossible to tear away from. There is nothing I adore more than a romance done well, and Funny Story is a quintessential book that defies everything I knew about the genre, taking the top pedestal with ease. A book that will stay etched on my heart forever. Five stars!
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Happy Reading!
