Huge thanks to Berkley for a free copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

12,000,000 stars.

Beach Read is my favorite book of all time. And I think this book just surpassed it. (I’m so sorry bb Augustus). The banter in this book was TOP KNOTCH. It also was giving me Gilmore Girls wit and humor. I devoured this book in a day. Miles is my new top book boyfriend, and this is not up for debate.

Emily Henry also knows how to write characters that you relate to, which I love. But it did have me crying in the club, ok, so read at your own risk (but definitely read it because you won’t regret it).

i truly believe that every girl has HER emily henry book & funny story is mine! daphne is the girl that people pleases in order to feel more secure in her relationships & and my therapist would agree that’s me to a T

Thank you Berkley for my copy! All thoughts are my own.

My history with falling in love with Emily Henry is an interesting one. From thinking her books weren’t for me to feeling so seen by her writing, interviewing her twice, and enjoying watching her career grow, I am so glad we have another story of hers that’s just ours for now.

I really liked this book. I really, really liked it. It was quiet and funny and interesting and swoony. It was full of characters I loved, dialogue that made me laugh, and a setting that made me ready for a trip to the lake. I still think Happy Place is my favorite, but this is a close second. I just love the quiet, relatable world she creates.

Synopsis:

“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?” —NetGalley

What I Liked:

The Setting—I loved the Michigan setting! Beach Read wasn’t the book for me so i’m so glad the setting got a redemption story for me. I loved the library, the beaches, the winery. All so great.

The Banter—EmHen banter is top notch for me. Miles made me smile every time he was on the page and I loved their chemistry!

The “Quietness”—I saw a comment online that a reviewer claimed the conflict in Emily Henry’s books don’t merit the third act break ups. I very much disagree. Sometimes life is quiet. Sometimes our reactions to things hurt so deeply, even if they seem small from the outside. While books are entertainment, sometimes it’s nice to see yourself or moment reflected in the quietness.

The Tropes—This was such a fun spin on Fake Dating/Forced Proximity. I loved it so much!

What Didn’t Work:

The 3rd Act Break Up/Lack of Miles’ POV—I really just wish we had Miles’ POV for this moment of the book.

Character Authenticity: 5/5 Spice Rating: 1/5 Overall Rating: 5/5

Content Warnings:

abandonment, called off wedding, infidelity, parent issues

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

No complaints! Beach Read was not my jam, Happy Place was a little better, and Funny Story takes the cake (or the brownies, in this instance). 🥰 At first, I was skeptical that I wouldn’t buy into Daphne and Miles’s relationship. The two found themselves in forced proximity after their significant others dumped them for each other. In what world would this really happen? The characters’ individual storylines and growth made it possible for this reader to overlook this unlikely scenario, however. There was a lot more to this book than Daphne and Miles’s romantic relationship. Shitty dads, found friendships, and making a home for yourself after everything falls apart—this book had it all. High praise from me, Emily. I haven’t given up on you yet! 😆

my new favorite emily henry: laugh out loud and deliciously HORNY !! makes you want to move to michigan TBH and makes you think about how your partner should be your best friend: the person who shows up for you through thick and thin is who you should end up with in the end <3 the most gorgeous roommates to lovers trope i've read

funny story!!!! this made me cry!!! i didn't think daphne's arc was going to sucker punch me the way it did. emily henry you've done it again. highly enjoyed, this was incredible, sucked me completely in and i abandoned all responsibilities for the day to read it

thank you to netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review

Emily Henry has done it again! She completely hooked us from the very beginning with the characters experiencing similar circumstances. The humor mixed with emotions really had us connected to each of these main characters. Not only did we fall in love with these main characters, but we loved all of the side characters that contributed to this story. Emily Henry has this way of writing stories that will have you feeling, happy, sad, hopeful, and nostalgic in the best way. You'll almost always find yourself not wanting to put down one of her books and Funny Story is no different. Daphne and Miles had the best connection from the very beginning. You'll be rooting for them from the start. Not only is the romance so beautifully done, but the setting of this and Daphne finding a home in where she's been planted was such a heartwarming storyline. Each character dealing with their own family troubles was also done so eloquently! Five stars from us, we can't wait for more from Emily Henry!

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met, fell in love, 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, and a new roommate who is the only person who could understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak. Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heartbreak 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?

Holy Moly this book had my whole freaking heart! After her last book, Happy Place which, despite the title, was emotional and tumultuous, it was time to bring that classic Emily Henry rom-com back! Funny Story definitely hit the mark. The premise is great! two exes' exes living together and falling in love? Genius! I loved how the perspective on the characters changed the farther we got into the story At the start Miles is this broken-down man who from Peter's perspective is not worthy of Petra or Daphne. But the more we find out about him, we see how much more worthy he is than Peter. He is the most connected man in town, would do anything for his friends and family and just because he doesn't have the waspy air or money that Peter and Petra do doesn't make him a lesser man. I also loved Daphne's self-discovery journey. She thought Peter was the perfect man and was going to give her the perfect life when in reality she was just slotting herself into someone else's dream. Both characters had an interesting familial backstory and it gave us a substantial subplot aside from the romance. Not to mention it gave us wonderful secondary characters. Ashleigh and Julia were great comic relief. Daphne's mom was the rock anyone needs in a mom. The kooky small-town characters were a great added bonus. Some tropes include Forced proximity, fake dating, opposites attract, and small-town romance

thanks to the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review. This book releases 4/23

Funny Story is a friends-to-lovers romance, but before they are friends, Daphne and Miles are exes of their exes who left the two of them to subsequentially be together… their exes were the “you have nothing to worry about!” kind of friends to each other 🥲 Daphne and Miles move in together just because both of them have nowhere else to go

First, they’re practically strangers. Then Miles ends up showing Daphne around the town they live in, all the coolest spots, the local tourism trope making its mark on 2024 methinks?? The two end up becoming really good friends and then more

Daphne has abandonment issues and struggles to find an identity outside of the people she’s with. Miles has “levity to cope”ism and has some storms under that breezy personality. I love Emily Henry’s ability to write such true to life characters

This is one lighter in subject matter than Happy Place, but it has some of the same vibes. Summery and atmospheric, great supporting cast of characters, and tugs at your heartstrings when it wants to

I really don’t know where this one falls in my current EmHen ranking*, but I genuinely think Miles is my favorite MMC Emily has ever written. He’s messy and doesn’t take anything seriously at first glance, but he’s charismatic, thoughtful, and speaks his mind. He is, like, an angel for Daphne, and he is the epitome of man written by a woman!!! King

There are some lines that made me laugh out loud, some I highlighted, and parts that made me tear up. Classic Emily Henry and I cannot wait to see what everyone thinks of it!!

*current ranking is Happy Place, PWMOV, Beach Read, Book Lovers

It's Emily Henry - she is seasoned enough to know what we want, and she gave that to us yet again. A great beach read!

Emily Henry wrote a book about a librarian? Say less. I LOVED this! I think it's gotten pretty mixed reviews, but it really holds a special place in my heart. I am a librarian and it was so amazing reading about one who really loves her job and has allll the best voices during story time. I loved the dynamic between the love interests. They had great banter and really heartfelt moments together. Highly recommend reading this!

Thank you to penguin publishing for allowing me to access this arc through Netgalley.! The way I screamed when I saw this in my inbox. :)

Emily Henry does it again! I cannot express how much I love her writing. Theres just something about the vibes that feel like a warm hug.
I like how the plot seems realistic and the characters are well thought out. I always feel very connected to the characters and their emotions.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought the story was fun and really cute. I loved the small town vibes! I feel like her books always touch a sensitive issue but in such a mature way. The characters really work through their problems and I feel like I can connect more to them this way.
The romance was so cute! I loved the little adventures the characters went on and the friendships that were developed.
This was another 5 star read for me! I highly recommend if you love character development and cute small town romance. I mean the main character works in a library, what more could you need to be convinced to read this book!!

I think this is my favorite Emily Henry book! She did such a good job creating characters I love and wanted to be happy (Daphne and Miles) and characters I wanted to punch (Peter). I maybe related a little too much to Daphne which made me just love her character even more. The tension, flirting and banter in this book was delicious and I eat up every minute of it. This book was also like a beautiful love letter to libraries and that made it so special and beautiful. Seeing Daphne and Miles grow, heal and trust each other was just heartwarming.

Rating: 4/5
Rating: difficult family dynamics, familial neglect,

Thank you to Berkley, PRH Audio and Netgalley for access to these advanced copies...all opinions are my own.

It really was a funny story...in classic Emily Henry form. The premise was straight out of a 00s RomCom. Julia Whelan can indeed do no wrong and manages to always be my favorite narrator. I think I can say I'm firmly in the really like camp for EH. I love that EH writes to the book lover world, the bookstagrammer in me found so much joy in Daphne's love of books. Something she does well is character development and this book was no exception. I loved the foodie moments and found family.

I don't know what it is for me but I am never in love with them or at least I'm not after thinking about it a bit critically. It's an immediate 5 stars because the ending was so good and then I think about it a bit more and the first 2/3 bring be back down. All this to say, I am always going to read her books.

→3.5 stars

this book just proves to me that I need to befriend someone who works at a winery.

it felt like a warm summer breeze, the ocean on a calm evening, the feeling of the first hints of summer. one thing about Emily Henry is she knows how to make you feel like you're right there alongside the characters. she can so acutely insert you into the story by her writing style and I will always give her credit for that. she is a fantastic writer.

with that being said, something about this book fell flat for me. I wasn't really invested in the story til about 60% in and even then the main conflict felt meh. Miles' character needed to be more developed I think; he just wasn't pining in the way other EH mmc's did. the plot felt very forgettable and doing too much at the same time. this was a melting pot of tropes with roommates, forced proximity, fake dating, tour guide dates, etc. It just felt like we were jumping around too much and it would have been better if we stuck to one or two of these. I'm still not convinced of their romance, if anything they were super horny roommates who ended up buying a house together. I could be holding this to too high of a standard though because Happy Place literally made me convulsively sob but I was just not super impressed with this one. I did love the librarian representation though, whoop whoop! her patron interactions hit a little too close to reality for me!

of course, I will still read anything this woman writes so I'll be anxiously waiting for her next book!

Came for diabolical vengeance and steam but got a boring, watered down therapy session

The local librarian, Daphne Vincent, is happily engaged to Peter Collins. Until the eve of his bachelor night when Petey unceremoniously dumps Daphne for his bestie, Petra. Also, heartbroken is Miles, Petra’s boyfriend. Daphne now needs a place to stay, and Miles just so happens to have a slot available. To get back at Peter and Petra, the two decide to “fake date.”

Funny Story had potential for some Jerry Springer like drama. Do not dump librarians. They read lots of stories and have plenty of material to work with.

Take, for example, our villain, Peter. He is a software person, and say he has a keylogger program on Daphne’s computer. Daphne creates some very interesting stories, googles “pregnancy” and “STD testing” and tells Miles how much “better” he is than Peter. Perhaps Daphne gets drunk, googles “hottest people on GoodReads” and wakes up with a few more bookish friends. Or she walks by Peter’s gym, licking an ice cream cone, only she’s too enthusiastic and the ice cream falls to the concrete sidewalk. She smiles and laughs genuinely while Peter runs over, offering to buy her another cone, but Daphne lowers her voice and says in a sultry tone, “No need. I get all the ice cream I need for free,” as she walks away.

But instead of bad librarian, this book went into some misguided attempt to give the characters backstory with characters excruciatingly overexplaining their feelings. The book just plain didn’t bring the fun. Where is our guilty pleasure?

Just for the record, Anne Elliot is the Jane Austen character that I most relate to. To pick a character from P&P is just too pedestrian, darling.

Lacking creativity, lame, tame, and too PG. Needs a bit more May Cobb.

Oh my GOD?? I am both shocked and weirdly not surprised by how much I loved and devoured this book. The story follows Daphne and Miles, forced roommates after both being dumped by their exes who are now engaged. Sound complicated?? It is, and it was absolutely a funny story.

Daphne and Miles are complete opposites. Daphne likes her schedules, a bit of a pessimist, not the best at small talk. Miles loves people, genuinely loves talking and making connections, and is just slightly scattered. But somehow they worked perfectly together, brought out the best in each other.

And their character growth was AMAZING.
Daphne learned to trust others and miles did his best to trust HIMSELF and it was such an enjoyable read.

I cried at about the 80% mark, Daphne’s emotions were so easy to empathize with, and I found myself feeling like I WAS her and that’s just how good the writing was.

I did find myself relating to both Daphne and miles and their struggles. It was so real and raw and I CRIED. And anytime I cry that hard, it’s an automatic 5 star read

I also loved every single side character(excluding the exes!!!). Ashleigh was such a good character I want a book for her lol

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this, because I’ve both LOVED and felt indifferent to Emily books, but I’m so happy I gave this one a chance, I won’t be forgetting about it anytime soon

I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Ahhh! First thank you so much to Berkley Publishing, Netgalley, and Emily Henry for a digital ARC. Emily Henry is the reason I made a Netgalley and Bookstagram account in the first place – I read Beach Read in 2020 and it pulled me from a year-long slump, so I instantly tried to figure out how to get an early copy of People We Meet On Vacation. I had been unsuccessful in attempts for early copies of her work untillllll…FUNNY STORY! So of course I had to immediately drop everything and read it.

There’s something about Emily Henry’s writing that makes me fall in love with her characters and feel their stories in my heart. She has a great blend of funny and deep conversations and none of her books feel “formulated” despite following the general pattern of incident, meeting, fun conversations, sexual tension, third act conflict, happy ending. One thing that really worked for me was how their emotional baggage lined up with each other. It meshed so well. Her not being able to trust anyone because of her dad and then him not being able to trust himself because of his mom gave the ability for some great understanding, empathy, and character development for Daphne & Miles.

I wouldn’t categorize this as a true “fake dating” trope because that was such a small subplot of this book. It’s kind of how they started talking a bit more, but it was very much EH’s take on fake dating. She gave them such bigger personalities than focus on tropes.

Other notes: I would rate this in my top 3 EH books. I absolutely loved the natural healing relationship between Daphne and Miles and thought their banter was entertaining and adorable. They gave serious Nick Miller/Jess Day vibes from New Girl and you know I love Nick Miller. (Or maybe you don’t know, but I mean…everyone should love Nick Miller.) The found family vibes were strong with this one for the ensemble cast and I really loved the relationships Daphne made moving forward to carve her own place.

Sidenote, I’m from Indiana and now somehow want to move to Michigan.

**spoiler starts here
I absolutely adored that Daphne found her own apartment and moved out at the end of the book but they stayed together. That was one of the most realistic parts – you can’t just move in at the start of a relationship, and she truly worked on finding herself and not relying on just fitting in Miles’ life. The fast-forward epilogue was a perfect ending and I’m happy they are happy.

Peter and Petra are the worsttttt (Jean Ralphio voice).

I appreciated that she reached out to Sadie and is working on rekindling that friendship. She took the needed break and neither of them knew how to get back to each other, but that small bit made me happy – friend break-ups are hard and that slow rebuilding can be healthy after some time apart.

Loved the premise of Funny Story. Daphne is dumped by her fiancé on the night of his bachelor party, because he’s fallen for his I-swear-it’s-platonic childhood best friend. Daphne finds herself suddenly heartbroken and without a home. A children’s librarian, she needs to find a new place fast and in budget - and with ample closet space for all the unused wedding detritus. When an apartment share becomes available, she moves in to find that her new roommate is none other than Miles, the jilted ex-fiancé of her own ex’s childhood best friend. Sticky, right?

What I loved: the beginning drama, Miles starring as best book boyfriend (ever?!), and the end. The forced proximity and fake dating started off well. This was a rare case where a third act break up worked in the story’s favor.

What I didn’t: the middle meandered. A lot. The fake dating trope was not well developed. Other than a couple social media posts, the expected amusement and cover-ups were glaringly absent. This is an EH book so, there were several side plots of heavy, messy emotional issues. While they could have created tension, instead the focus shifted to those and really took me out of the romance.

Overall 3.5, rounded up.
This was miles (see what I did there) better than Happy (ahem, Misery) Place, but not in the league of Book Lovers or Beach Read, for me.

Funny Story is a contemporary romance. It is my sixth book by this author.

I loved this book. I went into it completely blind. And I'm so glad that I did. I look forward to reading the author's new book every year. And I just find with romance that I prefer not to know the tropes in advance and just discover the story for myself. Funny Story is a wonderful read. And I think that the title works very well for the story.

The narrator is 33 year old children's librarian, Daphne. I loved her so much. And I adored her job so much.

This book does use some common tropes. But I sort of loved them here. And all of the characters were so great. I really liked Daphne's coworker Ashleigh. Her friendship with Daphne was one of my favorite parts of the book.

The romance was really good too. I loved Miles, I loved his sister Julia. And I was really interested in Daphne's relationship with her dad. This added a lot to the story.

The last part of the book was so good. I really enjoyed how the author included Peter in the book (Daphne's former fiancé). And I thought that there were some really fun reveals. Overall this book is amazing. Definitely one of my favorite books of the year. I highly recommend it!