Review: Funny Story

Title: Funny Story 

Author: Emily Henry

Publisher: 25th April 2024 by Penguin UK - Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking

Pages: 384 pages

Genre: General Fiction (Adult) | Romance | Women's Fiction

Rating: 5 cups

Synopsis:

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

I think I have to come right out and say it … I am officially an Emily Henry fan. Funny Story is a rom-com/drama about Daphne, a librarian, whose fiance leaves her for his childhood best friend, Petra. With nowhere to go, Daphne moves in with Miles, who also just happens to be the ex-boyfriend of Petra. Events would have it (… of course … that is why we read these books!) that Daphne and Miles pretend to annoy their exes by fake dating. The plot then moves to close proximity romance but rest assured, there is always much more to an Emily Henry novel than pure romance.  

‘It’s more, controlling the expectations you have for certain people. If a person lets you down, it’s time to reconsider what you’re asking of them.’

Funny Story may start with all the rom-com chuckles but romances are never all smooth sailing. Apart from dealing with being dumped, both Daphne and Miles have personal family issues that need to be faced. So while romance is what we are all about here, there are equally important personal issues to be addressed in each character's growth arc. 

‘… it matters way more that you’re present than that you’re perfect.’

What I love here is … yes, okay, Miles! He is wonderfully sweet. The respect and friendship that develops between the two is heartwarming. There are also wonderful side characters that bring depth to the story, particularly with a view to Daphne’s growth in what it is to be a friend. The fictional town of Waning Bay, Michigan is also brought to life wonderfully well - from wine bars, to beaches, to the library and coffee shops it all adds to the story. 

‘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.’

Funny Story seems to veer more towards drama rather than straight out romcom which I like. With issues of family and friendships, identity and abandonment put under the spotlight it gave so much substance to an already swoon worthy plot. It is everything readers of Emily Henry have come to love - the banter, the angst and the underlying themes of being brave and embracing change. 

‘I want to know myself, to test my edges and see where I stop and the rest of the world begins.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

 

Review: Happy Place

Title: Happy Place

Author: Emily Henry

Publisher: 27th April 2023 by Penguin UK, Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking

Pages: 400 pages

Genre: General Fiction (Adult) | Romance | Women's Fiction

Rating: 5 cups

Synopsis:

Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple - they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Except, now they don't.

They broke up six months ago. And they still haven't told anyone.

Which is how they end up sharing a bedroom at the cottage that has been their yearly getaway with their best friends for the past decade. For one glorious week they leave behind their lives, drink far too much wine and soak up the sea air with their favourite people.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth. The cottage is for sale so this is the last time they'll all be together here and they can't bear to break their friends' hearts. So, they'll fake it for one more week.

It's a flawless plan (if you look at it through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses).

But how can you pretend to be in love with someone - and get away with it - in front of the people who know you best?

My Thoughts

“Everything good?” she asks. “Of course it is,” I insist, snuggling closer. “I’m in my happy place.”

I was excited to read Emily Henry’s upcoming, Happy Place thinking it would be fun, light and romantic. I am happy to report that it was that and so much more. Emily’s fourth novel where she takes on the second chance romance trope is a definite winner and for many more reasons than readers might immediately think. 

‘What can you feel? Sunlight, everywhere. Not just on my bare shoulders or the crown of my head, but inside me too, the irresistible warmth that comes only from being in the exact right place with the exact right people.’

On the surface, Happy Place is the story of Harriet and Wyn who have to pretend they are still together so they don’t ruin their last holiday with their group of best friends. How this plays out will obviously prove eventful, however, dig a little deeper and there is a great deal more going on here. The tale goes between past and present but there is a real depth of emotion on both an individual, dual and group level that definitely sets this Emily Henry book apart from her earlier works. 

‘He’s become my best friend, the way the others did, bit by bit, sand passing through an hourglass, so slowly it’s impossible to pin down the moment it happens. When suddenly more of my heart belongs to him than doesn’t, and I know I’ll never get a single grain back.’

Yes, this book has all the expected charm with fun and light encounters but this time around there is an added layer of real character development. There is a sense of melancholy as other reviewers have noted that makes it less rom-com with a focus more on the slow burn. With deeper understandings and revelations as characters explore their individual and collective arcs and how navigating life and love - both romantic, family and friendships - is front and centre. 

‘The place I go when I feel trapped inside myself. When I’m terrified that all my happiest moments belong to the past.’

This, I found to be, one of the most appealing aspects of this book. Whether it be the individual's growth, the romantic growth and family/friendship growth - Emily Henry takes it to the next level. I found the theme of friends and family and what that looked like and how that impacted them to be just as powerful as the romantic themes - perhaps even more so. 

‘Time doesn’t move the same way when we’re there. Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for each other. Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was.’

Emily Henry’s Happy Place, is quite possibly her best yet as it has everything you have come to expect and so much more. Her writing is truly evolving with readers sure to love her latest offering. The romance is incredible but so too are the other themes and life lessons.

‘Everything is changing. It has to. You can’t stop time. All you can do is point yourself in a direction and hope the wind will let you get there.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Review: Book Lovers

Title: Book Lovers

Author: Emily Henry

Publisher: 12th May 2022 by Penguin General UK, Fig Tree, Viking

Pages: 384 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: women’s fiction, contemporary, romance

My Rating: 5 cups

Synopsis:

One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming…

Nora is a cut-throat literary agent at the top of her game. Her whole life is books.

Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers. And he's Nora's work nemesis.

Nora has been through enough break-ups to know she's the woman men date before they find their happy-ever-after. That's why Nora's sister has persuaded her to swap her desk in the city for a month's holiday in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina. It's a small town straight out of a romance novel, but instead of meeting sexy lumberjacks, handsome doctors or cute bartenders, Nora keeps bumping into...Charlie.

She's no heroine. He's no hero. So can they take a page out of an entirely different book?

My Thoughts

‘Maybe this is why people take trips, for that feeling of your real life liquefying around you, like nothing you do will tug on any other strand of your carefully built world. It’s a feeling not unlike reading a really good book: all-consuming, worry-obliterating.’

Finally I can claim, ‘Yes! I have read an Emily Henry book.’ Now, time to go back and read them all! I adored it! Simply stated, it is a book by a book lover, about book lovers and should be read by all book lovers. How freakin’ awesome!

‘It’s never taken effort - that’s what made me fall in love with reading: the instant floating sensation, the dissolution of real-world problems, every worry suddenly safely on the other side of some metaphysical surface.’

How can the one book contain so much! Let me tell you, through simply exquisite writing! You will get all the feels, all the laughs and yet still …. so much depth and true to life that lifts it into the stratosphere!

“I’m always a fan of the truth,” he says. “No one’s always a fan of the truth,” I say. “Sometimes the truth sucks.” “It’s always better to have the truth up front than to be misled.” “There’s still something to be said for social niceties.”

The banter between Nora and Charlie was so on point, it was good, not to mention a slow burn romance that is up there with the best of them. The commitment to family and siblings is inspiring. Nora and Libby’s relationship brought a tear to my eye. Yet, for me, watching Nora’s personal journey of growth … well, that left me speechless. I could feel everything she was feeling particularly with regards to her upbringing and a desire to hang onto certain traditions and memories.

‘The words break apart like alphabet soup, letters splintering off in every direction, utterly meaningless now.’

Book Lovers is fun and heart warming but also serious and sentimental. There was everything I was hoping for from an Emily Henry book -  a wonderful romance, a story of devoted siblings, a love of books sprinkled everywhere and a small town trope with a twist. I highly recommend this to romance lovers and book lovers in general!

‘That is what I’m looking for every time I flip to the back of a book, compulsively checking for proof that in a life where so many things have gone wrong, there can be beauty too. That there is always hope, no matter what.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.