We never get romantic comedies in movie theaters anymore, but at least there's a place we can find plenty of 'em: libraries and book stores.
Emily Henry's "Funny Story" checks both the "romantic" and "comedy" boxes with its story of children's librarian Daphne, who moves to a small Michigan town with her fiancé, only to be dumped on the eve of their wedding. She even gets that romcom staple, the "meet cute," in the form of scrambling to find a roommate, who turns out to be the ex of the woman who Daphne's fiancé dumped her for.
It's a variation of the proverbial "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" but, in this case, it's "the enemy of my fiancé will end up being my fiancé."
We know Daphne and the roommate, a sommelier named Miles, are perfect for each other immediately. They probably know they're perfect for each other immediately. But, in true romcom form, it takes almost the length of the book for them to get it together.
I feel like 50 pages could easily be edited out of Henry's 410 but, that quibble aside, it's a breeze to read, with nuanced characterizations, brisk setpieces (I can easily picture a movie with, maybe, Elle Fanning) and Henry's deft wit.
There's this tart description by Daphne, who narrates the book, when she meets Miles, whom she says looks "like the guy from high school who intentionally failed his senior year to stick around for a while, then started selling bootleg cologne out of the trunk of his car in the mall parking lot."
She's being a little hard on handsome, thoughtful Miles, who turns out to be an all-but-perfect guy with one issue: He may still be hung up on the ex who dumped him for Daphne's ex. Henry introduces tons of complications (Daphne's friendship with a mysterious colleague, the arrival of Miles' messy sister, the smallness of the town forcing Daphne to keep seeing her former fiancé from afar) and most of them are good fun.
Like a lot of romcoms, "Funny Story" insists that romance is rarely tidy or packaged the way we expect it to be (that's where the "com" comes in, right?). Early on, Daphne tells us that she had "carried my life like a handkerchief knapsack at the end of a broom handle, something small and containable I could pick up and move at the drop of a hat. And I never knew what it was I was running from."
By the end of "Funny Story," Daphne has started to figure out her life. It may involve a guy. It may not involve a guy. Who am I kidding? It involves a guy. But, as our heroine makes her peace with Michigan and the new life she accidentally made there, it's also quite a bit more.
Funny Story
By: Emily Henry.
Publisher: Berkley, 410 pages, $29.
