Eng Review
Before we talk about the book i want to thank Penguin Random House International Publishing for the free eArc, but mostly i want to thank them for making me read one of the best books i read in 2024 and dare to say of all time.
But let’s take it from the start.
«Funny Story» by Emily Henry is about Daphne, a librarian, who moved to the beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, with her fiancé Peter. She thought she had the perfect life, with her amazing fiancé, the perfect job at the local library, and the prettiest little house in Waning Bay. But everything falls apart when, on the morning of their wedding day, Peter returns from his bachelor party with the most devastating news… He leaves her for his best friend Petra. Forced to find somewhere to stay, she ends up in the spare room in Miles’ apartment. Who is Miles? Petra’s boyfriend, now ex, whom she dumped with a post it note. Somehow Daphne and Miles are forced to live together, until she can put her life in order. And they may have told a little lie about being together…but who blames them?
«Funny Story» is a novel that talks about how nothing is as it seems but mainly it’s about the fact that our life does not end at a certain age.
It was really nice seeing a girl in her thirties try to find herself again and become independent. As a girl about to turn thirty, it’s very hard to read about women in their twenties finding the love of their life and having the perfect job and the perfect life. I want to not have those expectations upon me. I want to be a mess in my thirties and I want to be able to find myself again in my thirties and I don’t want to be seen as lost or a loser because I don’t have my whole life figured out by the time I’m thirty.
This also makes Daphne such a realistic character. I felt her anger and her anxiety and her sadness, but at the same time I felt her joy and her will to stop doing things for others and start doing things for herself. She was a lonely person, until she met Peter, her ex-fiancé. From that moment her whole life depended on him and HIS family and HIS friends and HIS hobbies. So when it all fell apart she was more alone than ever… and I felt that. I felt this loneliness flow throughout her body and becoming mine… but she was not alone and this is what she will discover.
Also, I loved the romance. Yes it was very slow burn but it also had the «fake dating» trope which balanced it out. I loved reading how they fell in love without it being a love at first sight, but a love that simmered before it became a full fire. I loved watching them struggle with their demons and become vulnerable at the right time. And I loved seeing them not get over the pain of their breakups right away, but gradually. A breakup isn’t something so simple and it showed us that. So they didn’t immediately fall for each other, but only after they were ready and had, mostly, gotten over their breakups with their former partners.
All of Emily Henry’s characters are multi-dimensional. You had the main characters, Daphne and Miles, fighting their demons and growing as individuals, but at the same time you had Ashleigh trying not to get lost in her own head and drown in the expectations she had for everyone, you had Julia who she was trying to overcome her traumas alone but later letting her brother to help her. We had a variety of secondary characters that we might not see in detail, but we learned about them and they completed the picture of the world she had written.
One thing that bothered me was something very subjective. I didn’t like the use of weed as something that made Miles feel better, or that at one point romanticizing its use, or at another point it was used to give the female protagonist a little edge and the false sense of breaking the rules. I personally don’t like references to drug use in Romance Literature, especially when they have nothing to do with the plot. The book could really stand without these two or three scenes. HOWEVER it was, like I said, two or three scenes in the first 20% of the book, then Miles said he was quitting and he really didn’t mention it again. That was the only reason it wasn’t a perfect read, but believe me, at least for me, it touches perfection.
Finally, let me mention that Henry’s writing is incredible. She has a way of making you lose yourself in her words and never want to find yourself again. I could picture every scene that showed us and I really think it could be made into a movie. And the writing was so fresh and so emotional that I found myself thinking as if I were a Henry character (well I wish I was). I was so into the book that I read it in an entire day, which I don’t often do.
It was a beautiful novel. An ode to how life doesn’t have to be perfect or clean or straight until your thirties. You are allowed to make mistakes. You are allowed to change careers after your thirties. You are allowed to try to rebuild your life after your thirties. And if you haven’t found a steady job or the love of your life or don’t have your own house or your own car by the time you’re thirty it really doesn’t matter. You can do anything you set your mind to at any age. You just have to take a breath and try. And everything will be fine I promise.
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