Title: Funny Story
Author: Emily Henry
Genre: Romance
Publishing House: Viking (Penguin General UK)
Synopsys (from Goodreads): 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?
Rating: 4/5 stars
A huge thank you to the publishing house, Viking (Penguin General UK), for inviting me to take part in the blog tour for this book and for providing me with an E-Arc through NetGalley.
All opinions, however, are completely my own.
TW: toxic parents, emotional abuse, absent father
This review will be completely spoiler-free
Hey there guys, today I’m here with a review of a book from one of my favourite authors ever: Emily Henry. I know this book has come out a month ago, but life got in the way, so better late than ever, here we are with my review of Funny Story.
I have read every single Emily Henry’s romance book, and I love her writing style, her wittiness and her plots. I always say that she’s for me in romance literature what Taylor Swift is for me in music, since they both touch a lot of emotions that I feel with all my heart.
Henry’s books have always been 5-stars reads for me (with the exception of Book Lovers, which still remains my least favourite one). I have to say that sadly this one wasn’t a 5 star for me either. I expected a bit more from it, and while this was still better than most books I’ve read this year, since it is Emily Henry, it didn’t blow my mind. I would still read Henry’s grocery list, though, there’s no doubt in that.
This book is very fun (no pun intended) in its premise, since it follows Daphne, who was dumped by her ex-fiancé. He wanted to get together with his best friend Petra, who was Miles’ girlfriend. Miles is our other main character. In an act of compassion, and equally hurt by what happened to them, Miles offers Daphne, who’s temporarily without a home, to go live with him. You can imagine what happens from there.
I really liked Daphne and Miles’ characters, they had all of the characteristic I search in an Emily Henry’s novel, they were witty, they were still searching themselves, and their banter was top notch. I truly think no one can write a dialogue like Miss Henry. But I didn’t believe in their romance like I believed the other ones in her books. If I have to choose one couple from Henry’s books who probably has broken up after the epilogue, I’m sad to say… this one would be it. I just didn’t feel their tension, or a big chemistry. I felt a lot of affection between them at the end of the book, but I don’t know if it was love yet.
Also, there was a fake dating trope that lasted for the span of literally two seconds, it was thrown there, and it was never picked up again.
But while the romance didn’t totally convince me, what really got to me, and that even made me shed a tear or two was Daphne’s relationship with her father. Henry’s always got the best side-plots in romance books, and that’s something I really appreciate. The love story between the two main characters is not the only focus, and she got, also in this book, to examine some family dynamics that were heavy to read, but I think really formative for the growth of our main character. At the end of the book, I think Daphne found a little bit of the hope she had lost of the beginning of the story and that was beautiful to see.
Okay guys, that was my review for Funny Story by Emily Henry, I highly recommend it if you are in search for a romance with good banter and a good side plot.
Thank you so much for reading,
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