Funny Story

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?

I was a little hesitant to check this one out because I didn’t love Emily Henry’s previous book, Happy Place, and paying full hardcover price for a book to end up not loving it is such a bummer, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to take that risk again. But I did end up getting a copy, and I enjoyed this more than Happy Place (although not as much as my favourite of hers, Book Lovers).

From the very start, I was so angry on Daphne’s behalf. Emily Henry didn’t waste time establishing Daphne’s heartbreak and making me root for her. The blossoming romance between Daphne and Miles was sweet and I like the fake dating trope so I thought the first half of this was a fun read. I also really enjoyed Daphne’s friendship with Ashleigh, and they had some fun friend banter.

There were some things I really didn’t like though. As far as a love interest goes, I thought Miles was a bit bland. I also thought the family drama, both on Daphne’s side and Miles’s, just wasn’t interesting and I felt like it took focus away from other aspects of the story. And on the flipside of that, I actually wanted more of Peter/Petra. I don’t know if I was hoping for some sort of confrontation or showdown, but their getting together felt like the catalyst for this whole story and so I guess I wanted something more from that.

So while this isn’t my new favourite EH book, I still liked it. The only book of hers that I haven’t read yet is People We Meet on Vacation, which I know I have on my bookshelf somewhere, so I’m going to track it down for some summer reading!