There's something about Emily Henry books that just make me want to live in them. She does such a brilliant job creating whole and realistic characters, complete with flaws they need to work on before reaching their HEA. It's so refreshing and so lovely to read. I have really appreciated a focus in her last two books (Happy Place and this one) on the difficulties of making and maintaining friendships as an adult in your 30s. Relationships are more than just romance, and Emily Henry realizes that.

Funny Story is a very sweet book about having your life unexpectedly upended, and taking the time to figure out who you are on your own and embrace where you are. It's also got fake dating, witty banter, and general hijinks, what more could you really want in a romance novel?

I'm very much looking forward to this one's publication, and sharing it with friends.

As an author, there are times when I read a book and I’m so head over heels for the plot and characters, I can do nothing else but focus on that particular story.

Funny Story is one of those books.

Emily Henry is truly brilliant.

Daphne and Miles are so different, such polar opposites, but somehow perfect for each other. Their slow friendship, the understanding of the others hardships and history, the respect, the admiration, the adoration…it’s like you’re getting punched in the gut while simultaneously smiling like an idiot at the pages.

I loved the side characters. I loved the setting. I loved the slow and indulgent way Miles and Daphne loved each other. I feel like I say this every time, but Funny Story is Emily Henry’s best work (and, dare I say, the hottest? The tension. The lust. The want for each other? Off the charts).

Miles and Daphne have the kind of love you just know would last long after the book ends, and I’m so glad I got to read their beautiful story. This is going to be a slam dunk for everyone who loves EH’s prose, no questions asked.

Thank you Berkley for the ARC.

I have no complaints about this book! It was an absolute delight to read and was typical Emily Henry perfection. It was humorful in the right places, tender and heartfelt in others, and just so amazing. This is her best book yet! I also very much so appreciate the accurate representation of librarians. Whether Henry worked in a library at some point, is close friends with librarians, or is simply very good at writing realistic characters, I don't know, but it was great. I highly recommend this book and will be purchasing a physical copy when it's released. I also want to add that if anyone else felt like Happy Place, while good, was more like women's fiction than romance, do not fear because Funny Story hits all the romance feels in the best way possible. I loved Miles and Daphne and their growth both separately and together was awesome. I empathized with these characters so much and was rooting for them the entire time! I also loved the side characters and felt like they were the perfect addition to this story. 5 stars! Highly recommend!

Emily Henry has once again crafted a beautiful love story full of characters that come to life on the page. Full of plenty of highs and lows and a pinch more spice than some of her previous titles, Funny Story scratches that itch for human stories full of heart, laughter, and maybe some tears in a way only Emily Henry can.

A surprise to absolutely no one, I adored the book. No one does it like Emily Henry.

The tension. The push and pull. MILES! Funny Story felt like watching a group of my best friends go about their lives, fall in love, and become their best selves.

"It's a library, Daphne. If you can't be a human here, where can you?"

With each book Emily Henry writes, I fear more and more that she lives inside my head. I have never felt more seen, understood, or accepted than I do when reading Henry's books; she is truly more than just a romance writer––she's a storyteller of the human condition. In fact, I may need to start forwarding her my therapy bills, as she is both the cause and cure for the intense emotions that tend to erupt inside me every time I read her books. It is beyond my comprehension how Daphne (Funny Story), Harriet (Happy Place), and Nora (Book Lovers) all equally make up my personality: Harriet's anxiety and the way she comports herself to be the person everyone else needs; Daphne's fear of abandonment, which causes her to build near impenetrable walls to protect herself from anyone else leaving her; Nora's intense work ethic and perfectionism preventing her from pursuing her true passions, needing to know every outcome of what happens next before actually taking the leap. Once again, Emily Henry has kept me up for hours as I sit in my bedroom reading her advanced copy the day I receive it, and once again, I was unable to staunch my vulnerable tears.

Nevertheless, I will say I spent perhaps an equal amount of time laughing as I did crying while reading Funny Story. Henry has always had the witty dialogue of a Gilmore Girls episode, but her banter game was unmatched this time, which is fitting considering the title.

Daphne and Miles felt like the amplified, Michigan-version of Nick and Jess from New Girl in the best way. Down to the bartending, beard, and questionable fashion choices, Miles is Nick––the gruff yet lovable male lead with a heart of gold under a laid-back exterior built from childhood trauma and repression. On the other hand, Daphne is Jess with abandonment issues--not only does Daphne also work with kids as a children's librarian, but she moves in with Miles as a result of her boyfriend falling for another woman, and eventually finds herself crushing on her roommate across the hall. Just like Nick and Jess, no one expects Daphne and Miles to work out--least of all Daphne and Miles themselves--but with the help of a beautifully eclectic cast of Michiganders, a library fundraiser, a truly unfortunate circumstance, and even a little weed, Daphne and Miles are able to have their moment (queue "Green Light" by Lorde).

Synopsis:
After moving from city to city with her single mom as a child, Daphne is ready to settle in and put down roots in Waning Bay, Michigan, her fiancé Peter's hometown. Peter is the picture of a perfect partner, down to the way he tells the story of their meet-cute. That is, until his bachelor party, where he realizes that he's actually in love with Petra, his longtime best friend, and the girl Daphne was always told not to worry about. With only a week to pack her things from their home before Petra moves in, Daphne is forced to move into the only place she knows has space: Petra's old apartment with Miles, Petra's ex-boyfriend, as her new roommate.

Commiserating over their shared misfortune, Daphne and Miles form a tentative friendship built on complaining, action films, and junk food. While the two couldn't be more polar opposites if they tried, they have a shared trauma to bond them, and that should be enough to hold Daphne over until the end of summer, when she can finally move away from Waning Bay and leave Peter, Petra, and the joke of her almost-life behind. All Daphne needs to do is get to the Read-a-thon, the fundraiser she's been planning at the library for over a year. After all, nothing is tying her to Waning Bay; she left her mom, friends, and former job on the East Coast, and all the connections she's made since moving with Peter have been on his behalf. What's worse, a month after Daphne moves in with Miles, the two receive invitations to Peter and Petra's wedding, pity invites meant to demonstrate good graces, but really only serve to rub salt in the wound.

Of course, what follows is the downward spiral that anyone would fall into: Daphne and Miles RSVP to the wedding as a fake couple, lying to their former partners out of spite and pettiness, only to catch real feelings when a performative kiss in the parking lot of a farmer's market turns hot and heavy. Suddenly Miles has dedicated the summer to showing Daphne that Waning Bay can be more than the ghost of her and Peter's past, that Michigan can be her home too. And when a lie of a relationship becomes the most important friendship Daphne or Miles has ever had, the apartment Daphne moved into out of desperation may become the most loving home she's ever known.

Overall:
I will never not love an Emily Henry novel. While I will admit I was apprehensive at first about Miles as a book boyfriend (I'm nothing if not exactly the same as an Emily Henry heroine), Miles quickly grew on me with his funny one-liners, relationship with his younger sister, and his affinity for the beauty in nature and hidden beaches. I loved each interaction with one of Miles' outlandishly perfect artisanal farmers (especially Barb and Lenore), and I ate up every one of Daphne's Saturday Story Times. Henry has a knack for making me want to live in small, coastal/lakeside towns, and Waning Bay was no different. I can smell the pine, chai, and wine all the way down here in wintery Cincinnati.

I can't wait for everyone to read Funny Story when it comes out. Funny Story is a must read for any romance aficionado, but also anyone looking for an introspective read about how our childhoods affect our adult lives, what it means to grow beyond your expectations for yourself, and how to love even when you feel you don't deserve it.

"I'd tempered my expectations, packed them tight into bricks, built a fortress to protect me. But keeping every glimmer of hope out has isolated me too, and I want to be seen. I want to be loved. I want to live with the hope that things can get better, even if, in the end, they don't."

i think i know now why emily henry books feel reliably solid: the main characters feel just as insecure, riddled with doubts and oddities as most people. the main character in this one has friendships and coworkers and family relationships she cares about outside of the romantic lead.

sure, i might be biased as a librarian and a former storytime improv regular, but even if i don’t have much in common with these characters, they felt real enough to both be frustrated with while still wanting them to succeed.

many thanks to berkley publishing group and netgalley for the advanced reader copy.

I will rate it a 3.5 rounded up to 4. I really like Beach Read, but I didn't like the last 3 at all. And people can't understand it, but I don't know. I just got so bored trying to get through them. I don't think the wit was that witty, so this one in comparison was a breath of fresh air, and made me really like this author again. Even though the plot is not exactly original by any means and it is terribly predictable, I really enjoyed the book and wanted to finish it. It was extremely cute. The plot is basically two exes become roomates and then fake date to get revenge in a nutshell and it's shocking how it all turns out in the end (sarcasm).

Thank you so much to #netgalley and #berkleyromance for this advanced copy for an honest review.

A longtime fan of Emily Henry, I'm always eager to see what else she's got up her very crafty sleeves. Funny Story immediately captured me, the first few chapters quickly exposing just how chaotic life has gotten for children's librarian Daphne. The story kicks off with newly living with her ex-fiancè's new girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, with no friends of her own to speak of in the small town of Waning Bay, Michigan.

Fake dating hijinks ensue, and rapidly gives way to the complications of attraction and developing feelings.

To put it simply, it's delicious.

While not my favorite of Henry's works, Funny Story is a humorous and tender romp through life as a 30-something, trying to carve out a place of your own in this big? wide world. It was sweet and sexy and incredibly funny, all while dealing carefully with the reality of complicated family dynamics.

The biggest downfall for me was the last 15% or so, in which we find Daphne fumbling through a series of events that really test her and the relationships she's built. The conclusion fell really flat for me, which was really surprising because of how voraciously I tore through (and adored) a majority of the book. By the very last bit of the book, I didn't feel engaged any longer, which is why it's a 4-star read for me.

The "banter queen" does it again! After the delicious heartbreak of "Happy Place"--which I also adored, but, you know, *ow*!--I was excited to dive headfirst into what promised to be a classic EmHen romance.

As always, the romance built to a fever-pitch with fiery glances interspersed with laugh-out-loud quips, and I couldn't help falling for both characters--hard.

Henry does great secondary characters, too--I haven't been this besotted with a feisty best friend (Give! Ashleigh! Her! Own! Book!) since Libby in Book Lovers. And Waning Bay was possibly my favorite character of all. I could have spent hours browsing the stacks of Daphne's library, sampling cheese and asparagus at the market stands, drinking the finest flights at Miles's bar.

Hundreds of pages flashed by in an instant. The ease of Henry's prose never fails to impress me. Her writing is concise, monumental. She packs acres of sentiment into inches of page length, and I walked away, yet again, wishing I could be best friends with Daphne, Miles, Ashleigh, Julia...and Emily Henry herself!

The only way I can describe how I feel after finishing this is like my heart was pulverized and then the best cardiac team ever created (preferably the one from Grey's Anatomy) revived me and put me back together just enough so that I could call my therapist and talk about the abandonment issues I share with Daphne.

In all seriousness, this was such a beautifully funny story with so much heartache. Emily is one of the most talented storytellers. She always comes full circle. The characters ALWAYS stay true to themselves. Funny Story is about facing the darkest, ugliest parts of ourselves and deciding you want to be different. The commitment to becoming the best version of. yourself so that that's who you can bring to the table in a relationship. And about becoming brave enough to stand on your own. People always talk about finding who you are, and it's not a straight path for everyone. I thought the way it was reflected in this story was so raw and beautiful.

From their initial breakups with their significant others, both Daphne and Miles are forced to move forward, separately but together, and they are both absolute messes. Just doing their best.

But the way they prop each other up is so endearing. And then they begin to work through parts of themselves they've never shared with anyone else, and honestly, didn't even want to admit to themselves. Daphne has some difficult pieces of herself that she comes to terms with, ones that I know are so unpleasant and difficult to admit to yourself. But watching her begin to become her own person, build a life she is realizing she wants and own up to mistakes she's made? So rewarding. Such a beautiful journey to go on. And Miles. Sweet baby Miles. He's such a LIBRA. I was so scared when they finally hit their sort of third act breakup that I'd never forgive him. But damn she knows how to write a man. How to make them pull through.

Additionally, I am so thankful of the way she handled Daphne and Petra. I was scared that there would be woman on woman bashing. I mean, your fiancee leaves you for his 'platonic' gorgeous best friend and it's hard not to compare yourself to her. But the way Daphne did was always about Daphnes beliefs about herself. She never bashed Petra or tried to tear her down. And I think I've just seen that play out in the past and I am so grateful we're moving away from that!!

Anyways, if you have a fear of abandonment issues, I'd put your therapist on speed dial before reading.

I loved this book. The characters were not stupid like too many romance characters are and the plot was adorable and full of healthy communication and female friendships and I love it. The conflicts werent overblown miscommunications and the main characters were adorable.

an unsurprising and completely expected infinity star book. i will talk more about it in april but i do have a few thoughts i want to share 💌

this book is for us girls that want to make everyone around us happy, but don’t do enough to have our own happiness. it’s for the girls who would do anything for people to stay, even if they know they won’t. it’s for the girls who want nothing more than to be wanted and loved by certain people but knowing they’re just going to leave (queue the attachment and abandonment issues).

i feel a DEEP connection with both miles and daphne, and funny story has easily became my favorite Em Hen book 🥹. there are so many things i loved about this book, but the way miles and daphne quietly love and support each other has to be my favorite (hello confessions!)

i really hope everyone picks this book up in april and loves it as much as i do 🫶🏻🥹 thank you so much berkley for the advanced copy.

🎧songs:
the archer
mirror ball
long story short
matilda
you’re on your own kid

instagram: @morgansbooknook_

A million thank yous to Netgalley for this ARC!

This is my new Emily Henry favorite. This was sweet, witty, fun, and I am totally biased because I'm a librarian. This was the perfect mix of serious and sweet. I blew through this book, and I'm going to buy it just so I can think about it and love on it more.

I got goosebumps from those last couple of lines, my god. Emily Henry has done it again. She can only write 5-star books! I'll be thinking (and talking) about this one for a long time!

Is Emily Henry my secret best friend? Seriously, every time I dive into one of her books, it’s like she’s dishing out the best life advice or dropping these crazy relatable nuggets that just scream “this is YOUR story.” It’s like she’s writing these love letters meant for my eyes only. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, her characters are so real and she creates storylines that are just a joyride of chaos.

I just finished “Funny Story,” and surprise - it was perfect. But then again, when has any Emily Henry book been anything less than a masterpiece?

Daphne find herself rooming with her ex fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex boyfriend after she is asked to leave what should’ve been her new home. Awkward.. Then when they both get invited to their exes’ wedding, she lies and says they are going together because they are also dating. If only Miles wasn’t turning into her best friend. If only he wasn’t so attractive. If only he wasn’t so willing to go along with the plan….what could go wrong?
Another great Emily Henry romcom.

"Funny Story" was such a wild, unexpected ride for me. At first it was giving full "rom-com" vibes but I shouldn't have trusted Emily because that woman likes to play with our emotions.

This was one of my favorite reads of the year, alongside Happy Place. The writing and the pacing was perfect as always, the romance was beautiful (more like a subplot) but beautiful nonetheless. Our main character, Daphne, is the type of FMC that you can relate to. She was real, she was full of emotion and her character development from start to finish, inspired me in the best way possible. Around 60% into the story, I was sobbing uncontrollably and I had to stop at several points because it was hitting me way too hard. I loved this. There are not enough words to thank Emily for writing this masterpiece. I can see certain readers loving this one more than previous books by Henry, due to its topics and the things that both of the main characters have to deal with (I personally did)

Now moving on to our male main character, Miles. He was everything to me. He was the perfect representation of "The Archer" by Taylor Swift (Daphne was more like "mirrorball"). He was going through it, wanting to be seen and appreciated and I APPRECIATE HIM!!!!! He's perfect, sweet, caring, passionate, honest and I SEE HIM.

I loved this. Also the spice?????? This one was spicy!!!! 🌶️ I loved it. I can't wait to read more by Emily Henry. She's awesome.

Emily Henry never disappoints. The way I fell hard for both Miles and Daphne. My heart was fluttering the entire time. I could not put this book down.

I LOVE Emily Henry and this one was definitely a great addition to everything she's written! I'll read everything she publishes, honestly.