Books › Funny Story
Funny Story
416 pages
A sparkling, sun-soaked exploration of what happens when the worst day of your life accidentally becomes the beginning of your best chapter.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting on a sun-warmed porch with a glass of wine and a friend who knows exactly how to make you laugh through your tears. It balances the sharp, witty crackle of an opposites-attract dynamic with a surprisingly tender exploration of grief, betrayal, and the terrifying vulnerability of starting over. The narrative moves at a brisk, engaging clip, driven by sparkling dialogue and a cozy, vividly rendered lakeside setting that wraps around you like a favorite sweater. It is less about the mechanics of falling in love and more about the messy, beautiful process of rebuilding a life from the rubble of a broken heart. Perfect for anyone who loves their romantic comedies laced with genuine emotional depth, messy family dynamics, and the healing power of a perfectly timed joke.
- Mood
- sun-warmed
- cozy
- hopeful
- breezy
- Tone
- wry
- heartfelt
- witty
- vulnerable
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- starting over · chosen family · healing from betrayal · opposites attract
- The writing
- Sharp, dialogue-driven, and effortlessly funny, balancing sparkling banter with moments of quiet, aching introspection.
- The arc
- Moves from the sting of sudden heartbreak and displacement to the warm, tentative joy of unexpected connection and self-discovery.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave smart, emotionally resonant romantic comedies where the characters feel like real, flawed people navigating messy lives.
Content notes
- past infidelity
- parental abandonment
- heartbreak
About the book
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?
Description from Open Library.
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