By: Duke Jenkins, President & Editor-in-Chief
In preparation (and celebration) of Emily Henry’s newest release, Great Big Beautiful Life, I decided to treat myself to finally reading her 2024 release Funny Story. As a college student on the cusp of graduation, I realized I needed a little bit of a release. When I finished the last book I needed to read for my classes, I allowed myself to unclench my ass, sit in bed, and indulge myself in a nighttime reading of something pleasant, romantic, and comedic. Fortunately for me, Funny Story was all those things and more.
Funny Story follows Daphne, a thirty-something children’s librarian who is dumped by her fiancé, Peter, for his childhood best friend, Petra, and moves into the apartment of her ex-fiancé’s aforementioned best friend’s ex-boyfriend, Miles.
Keeping up? Good.
Now that Daphne has broken up with the fiancé she moved to a small town in Michigan for, she’s literally counting down the days till her children’s Read-a-Thon (a big overnight reading contest with prizes) is over so she can flee and live near her mom. However, to convince Daphne to stay in Waning Bay, Miles decides to show her around the community she’s been in for a year and has never actually been a part of. She’s not opposed to this idea, but she is opposed to running into her ex all over town. Seeing Peter is a big source of anxiety for her, and her attempt to make him jealous by pretending that she’s dating Miles is the primary reason that a romance between the two blooms.
Daphne is work-driven and realizes over the course of the novel that her world revolves around her significant other, focusing on fitting into his family, getting along with his friends, and living the life he wants to live. She’s someone who searches for security after an insecure upbringing, and Henry does a gorgeous job of portraying her growth into someone who tries to have their own life. Readers see Daphne making friends, becoming a regular at certain establishments, and getting plugged into the community of Waning Bay, Michigan. Her evolution is truly special to witness.
Miles is very secure in his role in this world. He’s a bartender at a local winery, friendly, well connected, witty, and has a penchant for playing love ballads. Of Henry’s leading men, he feels the most fleshed out, with a well-rounded personality that feels very carefully articulated. He had a difficult childhood which continues to inform his interactions with everyone around him (though, he’s almost forty. You would think he would have gotten that a bit more figured out by now). He’s sweet, caring, a great cook, and tattooed: I don’t blame Daphne one bit for hoppin’ on dat.
Daphne and Miles are a great couple, both as friends and lovers. Their exchanges, aplomb with pop culture references and absurdities, genuinely made me laugh out loud multiple times. Their tension was palpable and delicious to read. Their sex scenes, as written by the experienced Henry, was as delightful to read as anything else in the book: it was by no means explicitly graphic, but I was not lost with what was happening, either. Had I been reading the book on audio in the car with my mother, I could have listened to it without severe embarrassment.
Though the love between Daphne and Miles was strong, Daphne’s process of making friends in Waning Bay was what really kept me interested in reading. Daphne’s breakup from Peter led her to truly look at what was around her, and she eventually made friends with her coworkers, single mom Ashleigh and Morgan Freeman-esque Harvey, Mile’s sister Julia, and a few others. She becomes a regular at a local coffee shop, attends a prom for senior citizens, and begins to be someone you say “Hi!” to as you walk down the street. Coming from a small family and losing the chance to marry into a big one with Peter, Daphne crafts a found family that creates the community she’s been longing for; it’s a gorgeous product of self-reflection and exploration that makes the book worth reading.
While Funny Story is filled with colorful characters and a compelling arc of personal growth, the one thing I found disappointing was the lack of imagery in the book. In previous reads, Henry was an expert at providing just enough detail that didn’t make you tired of it, but didn’t make you do all the work at visualizing, either. I’m not someone who expects (or wants) paragraphs upon paragraphs of descriptive writing, but I found myself having to work a little more to imagine what regular locations—like Miles’s apartment, the library, and the local coffee shop—look like. However, given the gorgeous witty dialogue and compelling plot, a lack of detailed setting is something I can look past.
When it comes to romance books, I tend to be pretty generous with my praise. I’m easy to please, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind to flaws (read my review of Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage and you’ll see). Romance is supposed to warm your heart and provide a sense of wish fulfillment; it’s not just the characters who are falling in love, but the reader too. I can confidently say that Emily Henry has once again made me fall in love with her characters and her worlds, and most importantly, romance as a genre. The next time I go on a date and remember how much I love to be in love, I’ll be thinking of you, Emily Henry.
But not in a weird way.