Two lovers, two exes, one apartment, and a wedding make for a riveting read in celebrated author Emily Henry’s Funny Story. Set in the small beach town of Waning Bay, Funny Story follows two rejects, Daphne and Miles, who end up sharing an apartment after their exes get together. Indeed, a great set-up for a funny story (no pun intended).
It gets even better when Daphne, on a quest to save her ego, accepts her ex’s wedding invitation and makes Miles her fake boyfriend.
The stakes are set and so are the expectations for the deliverance of the popular fake-dating trope. As an admirer of Emily Henry’s writing style, I knew I could expect well-established characters with dialogues to boot, which was exactly what you would get. Excellent and witty banter and undeniable chemistry between the main characters. Daphne, a reserved and aloof librarian, is a stranger in the town. Friendless and lovelorn, she’s counting down the days until she can leave the town for good. This is the heart of the book. Daphne’s struggle to find a place where she belongs. Miles: sunshine incarnate, a total opposite of Daphne, becomes the conduit for all the things she needs.
Henry’s character feels so real that you forget that they’re not people you’ve met in real life but ink on paper. So when the characters start being too real it hinders the flow of the narrative. It becomes boring. And that is what happened in the second half of this book.
In this second half, Daphne and Miles’ dysfunctional parents come into the picture. They bring no real change to the story. Henry spends almost 70 pages dealing with Daphne’s abandonment issues and Miles’ struggle with expressing his emotions, but it leads to nothing. It is especially frustrating when you think about all the better ways those 70 pages could’ve been used, like delivering on the promise of revenge on the exes. Barring these minor hiccups, the book is authentic and enjoyable. A good read for someone trying to get into reading or get out of a reading slump but if you expect it to be your next best literary gem, then you’ve picked the wrong one.
