In any given bookstore in any city across the country, there is a romance section filled with colorful covers that feature silhouettes of a happy couple and a punny title. The publishing industry has nailed down the perfect formula to sell the genre, probably most popularized by #BookTok; a viral phenomenon where TikTok users recommend book titles to one another. Emily Henry is a name that floats around BookTok plenty; in the past four years, Henry has released five best-selling romance novels. The covers all fit the same criteria and are massively popular online. Her latest work, Funny Story, was published in April.
The novel follows Daphne, whose dream life is thrown off course when her fiance, Peter, leaves her for his best friend, Petra. Now without a home or a fiance, Daphne must move in with Petra’s ex-boyfriend Miles. The two become fast friends as they help each other heal from their mutual heartbreak until they receive an invitation to Peter and Petra’s wedding. Daphne, shocked and scorned, lies to Peter that she and Miles are dating. The rest of the novel follows the two as they navigate the trials of a fake relationship and try to catch real feelings for each other.
Daphne and Miles are both likable and realistic. It’s common for protagonists to be one-dimensional in modern romance novels where instead of prioritizing character development, authors focus more on plot. Emily Henry puts extra care into fleshing out her characters, ensuring that the audience can root for them over the course of the novel. Even the story’s side characters, like the couple’s family members and co-workers, are given well-rounded arcs. Daphne’s friendship with her co-worker Ashleigh is particularly captivating. It blossoms throughout the novel and even faces its own internal conflicts, which was refreshing since strong female friendships are rarely portrayed in romantic media. These smaller interactions made the novel more grounded and allowed the world to come to life.
Henry is known for using popular literary romance tropes as a way to drive her plot forward. In Beach Read, the characters followed the enemies-to-lovers trope. In People We Meet on Vacation, it was friends-to-lovers. In Funny Story, Henry makes her first attempt at fake dating. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me. Unlike her other novels where the trope is used to propel the characters toward one another, the fake dating in Funny Story felt like a side plot. Daphne and Miles are already roommates at the beginning of the novel, so they already bond as friends before the opportunity to fake date arises. The two reveal the truth to plenty of other characters during their ploy, limiting the secrecy between them. They only attend one event as a fake couple, and otherwise only partake in a few public displays of affection for good measure. All of the conflicts that were built-up were left unexplored. As a reader, I was excited to witness the scenarios in which the two were forced to pretend. Instead, the plot becomes focused on Miles and Daphne trying to avoid falling in love as roommates with all other possible conundrums abandoned.
Tropes aren’t everything when writing or reading a novel. However, tropes can be fun. They can draw unfamiliar audiences towards pieces of media. If a great writer includes these romance tropes in their work, they do not come across as overdone, they are just seen as a plot point. Emily Henry has made them work in her past novels without seeming too cheesy, but it seems as though she did not want to commit to her set-up in Funny Story. It was still a great book, but I wish that Henry embraced new plots instead of reusing similar story beats to her past novels.
Funny Story was a fun read and I thought that Emily Henry’s writing was as captivating as ever. I’ve noticed in my conversations about Henry as an author that nobody says they dislike one of her novels. Instead, they debate which one is her best. With her new novel just announced and a few screen adaptations under way, her popularity is sure to increase.
Aud Fitzgerald can be reached at [email protected].