emily henry

Funny Story

So … this was definitely an Emily Henry book! If you’re already a fan, I think you’ll love it. If you didn’t like her previous books, this probably isn’t going to be the one to convince you otherwise. 

It was a close proximity fake dating romance between Daphne, a straightlaced librarian, and Miles, a laid back bartender, who both get dumped at the same time when their (now) exes realize they are in love with each other. Daphne has nowhere to go, so she moves in with Miles, despite their very opposite personalities.

I liked the progression of their relationship, they don’t know much about each other other than what their exes have told them so it was fun to watch them discover who they truly were. They start off pretty sad and grieving their lost relationships but it quickly turns into friendship and then more. I didn’t feel a strong passionate love between them, mostly because they are both still pretty hung up on their exes, but that’s okay. 

Miles started as a very Nick Miller type character which I really loved, you don’t see that many romance MMCs who are often high while listening to Celine Dion alone in their bedroom. Daphne is a pretty typical Emily Henry FMC, smart and clever and sad. 

The first half flew by for me, filled with the budding relationship and excellent banter, but the second half felt a bit slow. I expect Emily Henry books to be more on the women’s fiction side but there’s a lot of other stuff Daphne is working through with her friends and family and I just wasn’t that interested in those parts. The third act conflict was miscommunication based and I didn’t love that even though I understood it. 

Overall though it was good! Again, if you love EmHen I think you’ll enjoy it. It fell somewhere in the middle of the pack for me behind Beach Read and Book Lovers. I did the audio and thought Julia Whelan did an excellent job as always. 

Beach Read by Emily Henry

I saw a ton of early praise for this book so I requested it from my library. For an author I haven’t read before I like to take it for a test drive before making a purchase.

I had seen so many exuberant five star reviews for this book that I went in with high expectations, all while trying to tell myself it can’t be THAT good since high expectations often lead to big disappointments. Guess what? It is that good. 5 stars good. ⁣
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It started a little slow for me, but once it got going I couldn’t put it down. The writing is crafted so perfectly, it gave me that falling in love for the first time, butterflies in my stomach type of feeling. ⁣
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January is great but Gus is such a wonderful book boyfriend. Grumpy, yet not jerky. Loving but guarded. Moody but swoony. ⁣
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Together they learned to move pass past mistakes- both theirs and things that were done to them. They have actual realistic communications (and miscommunication) and emotions. Neither is perfect… but perhaps they are perfect for each other.

Blurb (stolen from Goodreads):

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.