WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common.

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?

MY THOUGHTS (spoiler-free):

“The same universe that dispassionately takes things away can bring you things you weren’t imaginative enough to dream up.”

I’m just going to come out and say it: Funny Story is my favorite Emily Henry book to date. And that’s saying something, because I’ve loved all of them so far. But there’s something about Funny Story that just tugged at all my heartstrings and made me utterly obsessed with the book and the characters while I was reading, and also long after I finished reading. I still feel all warm and gooey inside because of this story and have to restrain myself daily not to just start all over again from chapter one.

As always with a book that means so much to me, I don’t know if I can write a review that can do it justice or put into words why I loved it so, but I’m just going to try…

Starting with the obvious, the fake dating / roommates trope…

Like, how genius is this plot? It’s so simple and yet so good and I love everything about it. Two people who end up living together because both their partners cheated with each other. And then decide, in a fit of pettiness and revenge, to start fake dating each other to make their exes jealous… only to catch actual feelings for each other. I mean, I was in love with the sound of this from the blurb alone. But a plot alone does not make a book and the way this was written made it stand out in so many ways!

Add amazing characters…

Daphne and Miles both own my heart. Daphne is the buttoned-up children’s librarian who feels lost after moving to a new town to follow her (now ex) fiancé Peter and building her life there solely around him, only to have everything fall apart around her. Now, she’s stuck in an unfamiliar place with no real friends and trying to figure out who she is without her ex and seeing if she even wants to stay in this place or just pack everything up and start fresh somewhere new.

And Miles at first seems like the polar opposite, a scruffy nice guy who’s friends with everyone and who at first seems like an aimless stoner to Daphne but once she gets to know him better, she learns there’s so much more to Miles underneath the surface.

Both Daphne and Miles have their own personal journeys to go through and I love how they both found their way and got to know themselves throughout the story.

And a LOT of bantery perfection…

When Daphne and Miles start to hang out with each other, at first it’s only to commiserate and for their fake dating ruse, but then it turns out they really enjoy each other’s company and they become very good friends. And the banter between the two of them… it is just perfection. While they each have their own personal healing journey that is quite emotional, their witty banter and fun times together bring so much humor, levity and balance to that aspect of the story. I laughed a lot and then I swooned when the banter slowly became a bit more flirty too.

Bookish love AND found family…

Two things I am a sucker for when they happen in any story: when there’s a love of books and when there’s a found family. And both happen in Funny Story. Daphne loves her job as a children’s librarian and that job also plays a big part of the story. I loved getting to see her daily worklife and how she got so excited about organizing the readathon. And of course her lovely coworkers, which leads me to the found family aspect. Because in the past, Daphne has been so distanced from everyone in her life that wasn’t Peter or Peter’s friends and now she has to make new friends on her own. Which we all know, making friends as an adult is HARD (well, at least for me. And Daphne). I especially loved her friendship with coworker Ashleigh and then later on also with Miles’ sister Julia.

Top it off with the most steam Emily Henry’s written to date…

Umm hi, yes, maybe I’m wrong or misremembering, but I definitely felt like this story had the most spice from any Emily Henry book so far… And I loved it! And not just the actual spice, but the sheer physical pining and longing. The chemistry was just so tangible. Ugh, it was just so good in every sense.

= ABSOLUTE PERFECTION!!

Overall, what more can I say than I absolutely adored this book. To me, it was perfection and I loved every single minute of it. I’m sorry Book Lovers, but this is my new number one Emily Henry (it’s a very close call though). And it’s still early in the year, but I’m guessing it’ll probably be in my top three 2024 reads for sure. So do I recommend it? DEFINITELY!

SOME FAVORITE QUOTES:

“The late nights binge-watching The X-Files on the couch they picked out together, the early mornings making toast while they’re still too tired to speak, the kids who will earn their first scars in the backyard and badly practice instruments at inconvenient times, and the way their favorite candle’s scent will gradually infuse the walls so that every time they come back from a trip, exhausted, and dump their bags inside the door, they’ll smell that they’re where they belong. All those moments throughout the days, weeks, months that don’t get marked on calendars with hand-drawn stars or little stickers.
Those are the moments that make a life. Not grand gestures, but mundane details that, over time, accumulate until you have a home, instead of a house.
The things that matter.
The things I can’t stop longing for.”

“Trust people’s actions, not their words. Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back. Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you. Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.”

“It’s a library, Daphne. If you can’t be a human here, where can you?”

“Life’s short enough without us talking ourselves out of hope and trying to dodge every bad feeling. Sometimes you have to push through the discomfort, instead of running.”

“Miles is the other kind. The kind that’s disarming enough that you don’t feel nervous talking to him, or like you need to show your best angle, until—wham! Suddenly, he’s smiling at you with his messy hair and impish smirk, and you realize his hotness has been boiling around you so slowly you missed it.”

Tell Me:
Have you read Funny Story or will you be reading it?