Funny Story by Emily Henry
- Alisha Eadle
- Aug 9
- 12 min read
Funny Story
by Emily Henry
Published by Berkley
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?
Genre
Triggers
Cheating
I. Loved. This. Book.
Funny Story was an adorable read, that had me mentally squealing and kicking my feet in excitement.
And when I wasn't falling in love with the story, and undeniable chemistry between Miles and Daphne, I was laughing at the effortless banter Emily wrote between these characters.
I just love how this story plays outs.
We've all wanted to do what these two do, if we've been in similar situations.
Make the ex who left you for another jealous.
Is it petty? Immature? Absolutely. And they don't hide their feelings on that in this book. But when you have two heartbroken people, suddenly living together after being dumped, and being forced to watch your ex's plan their wedding with one another ... yeah.
That sucks.
So while perhaps petty, Emily wrote their story in such a way that you root for them anyways. You enjoy the pettiness. You relish in the jealousy it causes their asshole ex's.
The best part is the friendship that builds between Daphne and Miles. They end up being just what the other needed.
The banter between these two is just so much fun. The chemistry between them felt so natural on the page - when they are just friends, and when they become more.
It all just came together kind of ... perfectly.
Funny Story just might be my second favorite of Emily Henry's work so far (With People We Meet on Vacation being first). If you haven't read it yet, and you want a nice, fluffy romance to read this summer, I encourage you to do so.
Miles: "It's a friendly place."
Daphne: "MEATLOCKER?"
Miles: "Butcher Town."
I smack my forehead and he stops short in surprise.
Daphne: "That's why it's called MEATLOCKER. I spent the whole night trying to figure out if it was a fetish bar or something."
Miles tips his head back, laughing.
Miles: "You thought I took you to a fetish bar?"
He looks delighted.
Miles: "Did Peter tell you I was into BDSM?"
Daphne: "Wait, are you?"
Miles: "Not that I know of. Why? Are you?"
Daphne: "Probably not. I think I'm pretty boring. In that realm."
Miles: "What realm?"
Daphne: "Sex Realm."
Miles: "Do you lie there and stare at the ceiling in silence?"
Daphne: "Excuse you. This is none of your business."
Miles: "You brought it up, Daphne,"
he reminds me.
Daphne: "I don't stare at the ceiling."
We've reached our building. He opens the door for me, and we start up the stairs.
Daphne: "I just make utterly unblinking eye contact like any respectable woman."
Miles: "See?"
he says, gesturing for me to take the stairs ahead of him.
Miles: "Not boring. Haunting, maybe. But not boring."
Miles: "Maybe we should date."
I choke. He watches me coughing, a impish grin forming on his impish mouth.
Daphne: "Yes,"
I finally manage.
Daphne: "A shared cuckolding is the most fertile ground from which love could ever spring."
He meets my eyes in the mirror, toothpaste foam spilling out of his mouth.
Miles: "Why did you say it like that?"
Daphne: "Like what?"
Miles: "Menacingly."
He spits into the sink and knocks the faucet on.
Miles: "Like, Me and my friend are gonna pay you a little visit, and we might have a baseball bat with us."
Daphne: "Because me and my friend are going to pay you a visit, and we might have a baseball bat with us."
Daphne: "Now there's no good way to get out of it. I mean, when we 'break up,' Peter will get to feel smug and superior about that."
Miles: "That's no problem,"
Miles says, pouring a taste of white wine for each of us.
Miles: "All we have to do is get married, and then stay together until they split up. And if they have kids, just have one more than them. If they get a dog, we get a cuter dog. If they buy a new house, we get a mansion."
Daphne: "A perfect plan. Why didn't I think of it?"
Daphne: "You told her we're sleeping together?"
Miles: "Yeah, she said, Is that your girlfriend, and I was like, We have sex, and we're in love. Someday, when we have a baby, we're going to name her Sue Ellen after my mom. No, Daphne. I didn't tell her we're sleeping together. Petra told her I'm living with my new girlfriend. I'm just guessing Katya might do some high-level deduction here. But if you want me to go ask whether she thinks we're having sex, I can."
Daphne: "How soon until everyone in Waning Bay hears this lie,"
I groan.
Miles: "I'm sure the paparazzi are gathering as we speak."
Ashleigh: "I'm vetting my friend's new boyfriend,"
she tells him.
Ashleigh: "Aren't they cute?"
Daphne: "If anything,"
I say to Miles,
Daphne: "we're still vetting her."
He looks over, smile deepening.
Miles: "I say we keep her."
Daphne: "Who's going to feed and walk her?"
Miles: "I will,"
he insists.
Miles: "Every day. I promise."
Miles: "He told you to trust him, and that's what you did. That's what you're supposed to be able to do with people you love. They just don't always live up to it."
Miles: "I've only ever heard people call it the spot."
Daphne: "The spot sounds exactly like where high schoolers come to smoke weed."
Miles: "True, but I haven't had any luck yet tracking down the stretch of beach where thirtysomethings go to smoke weed."
Daphne: "Oh, they're all just vaping from their beds while watching HGTV."
I hold his phone in front of us, the camera's flash turned on, and lean into him. He puts an arm around me and smiles sort of ruefully, unable to muster true joy. At the last second, on a whim, I turn and kiss his cheek as the picture finally snaps.
His face turns toward mine, our noses almost touching, pieces on his chin and cheeks hidden behind the flash's afterglow.
Daphne: "Just thought we could make Petra really happy."
Miles: "Really thoughtful of you,"
he says, the corners of his mouth curving.
Daphne: "Yeah, well, I thought about taking a video of myself giving you a lap dance, but I don't have anything to mount your phone on, so this was the next best thing."
Miles: "I will happily go back into the woods, find some sticks, and build you a tripod, Daphne."
Miles: "I had no idea you could do that."
Daphne: "Oh, yeah,"
I say, starting back toward the front doors. They whoosh open and we enter the cool, musty quiet.
Daphne: "I've been reading since I was six. I'm getting pretty good."
Miles: "I mean the voices,"
he clarifies.
Miles: "You were such a convincing elderly magician mouse."
Daphne: "If that impressed you, you should see me do the old woman who lives in a shoe."
Miles: "I'll clear my Saturdays."
Daphne: "I was kidding."
He grins.
Miles: "Not me."
I gesture toward the stacks.
Daphne: "Can I help you find something?"
Miles: "I was hoping you could spell out every word of a love poem to me,"
he deadpans.
Ashleigh: "That guy already called today,"
Ashleigh pipes up from the reference desk.
Daphne: "Yeah, I've hit my limit on daily X-rated flower metaphors, so that's one things I can't help you with."
He shrugs.
Miles: "I'll try again on Monday."
Daphne: "Want to go egg his car?"
I mumble into his chest.
Miles: "Seems like a waste of good eggs."
Miles: "Well, first of all ..."
He leans in close, drops his voice to a whisper against my ear.
Miles: "I love old people."
Daphne: "I have noticed you do well with the over-seventy set,"
I allow.
Daphne: "Then again, you're not so bad with the under-seventy set."
The zipper goes up and glides down to the same snag.
Miles: "Try to stay still."
Daphne: "You keep pulling me off balance."
Miles: "Do you have an ChapStick?"
Daphne: "Can your mouth moisturization wait a minute?"
I cry.
Miles: "Nah, not really - it's for the zipper, Daphne."
Daphne: "I just think you like people almost as much as they like you. And it makes being around you feel like - like standing in sunlight."
His mouth softens. Briefly, he studies the space between our feet.
Miles: "You feel like sunlight too."
I snort.
Daphne: "No, I don't."
Miles: "No, you don't. You're more like Lake Michigan."
Daphne: "Cold and bracing."
His voice drops.
Miles: "Cool and refreshing."
Daphne: "Shocking and painful."
Miles: "Surprising and exciting."
Miles ushers me into the kitchen, whispering,
Miles: "They just showed up."
Daphne: "And you let them in,"
I whisper back.
Miles: "He said he was your dad!"
he hisses.
Miles: "And that you were expecting him! I didn't know what to do."
Daphne: "I mean, in the loosest interpretation of the word, that's my father, but I'm never expecting him."
Miles: "And Starfire?"
Daphne: "The missing sixth member of the Spice Girls."
Miles: "You've never met her,"
he guesses.
Daphne: "Never even heard of her."
Miles: "So how'd you two meet?"
He sits back onto the other chair, mimicking my ready-to-run posture.
Dad: "Starfire is my life coach,"
Dad says, after a gulp.
Starfire nods, a smile still stretched tight across her lips.
Starfire: "But we actually knew each other before that."
Dad: "Apparently, we were married in a past life,"
Dad says, like, Can you believe that coincidence?
Starfire nods.
Starfire: "Several times."
Miles: "Oh. Well. Congratulations."
Starfire: "I was an heiress on the Titanic,"
Starfire explains.
Starfire: "And Jason was a handsome artist, but he was so, so poor. My social circles never would have approved. But we had a torrid affair, and he saved my life."
She goes back to nodding, a very earnest bobblehead.
Miles and I make eye contact. He looks like he's trying so hard not to laugh he might throw up instead.
Daphne: "So just, exactly the plot of the movie, then."
Starfire's head cocks to one side.
Starfire: "What movie?"
Starfire is still smiling like if she lets even the corners of her lips touch, the apocalypse might be triggered.
And after everything she endured on the Titanic, who can blame her for being so cautious?
Starfire: "She's a psychic too,"
Starfire tells me, nodding enthusiastically.
Daphne: "Who?"
Starfire: "Sandra. She's got the gift."
Too bad she didn't warn them there was no space for them in our apartment.
Daphne: "A part of me is just waiting,"
I rasp,
Daphne: "for the moment when you see whatever it is that drives people away. And I don't want that. I don't want you to stop wanting me around. I think it might break my heart to be someone you don't like."
Miles: "Fuck. Daphne."
His hands come up to my face.
Miles: "Do you want to know why your dad doesn't stick around?"
Tears sting the back of my nose, but I nod. It's the question I've never been able to stop asking, no matter how badly it hurts.
Miles: "Because you see him. And he can't stand it. And Peter's the same shit with a different outfit, so bored with himself he convinced himself that being with someone like Petra would turn him into someone else, without, like, having to be brave enough to try acid."
Daphne: "He was bored with me, Miles."
Miles: "If it was about you, he could've ended it. Instead he blew up his life. That's about him. I've been that guy, a dozen times, with a dozen people I didn't deserve. It's easy to be loved by the ones who've never seen you fuck up. The ones who you've never had to apologize to, and who still think all your 'quirks' are charming.
It's easy to be around people who don't know you. But as soon as someone starts to figure you out - as soon as you can't be perfect - it's easier to move on. Find someone new to be the cool, fun, laid-back one with."
Daphne: "So that's it?"
My voice crackles.
Daphne: "I make people feel like their worst selves."
Miles: "Daphne, no."
He pulls me in against him, his face buried in my neck.
Miles: "God, no."
When he draws back, tense dimples have pricked his scruffy jaw.
Miles: "Look, I've always wanted to be that fun, easy person with no baggage, even with Petra. But after a while, someone either finally sees you or they don't, and either way it fucking sucks. Because if they see you, and it's not what they signed up for, then they're out of there. And if they never see you ... it's worse. Because you're just alone.
And I loved Petra, but deep down I knew, as soon as things stopped being fun, she'd be gone. And she was. She found something more romantic, more perfect, just more. I think you're the first person who's really seen me. Past what I want people to see.
You make people you care about feel like ..."
He pauses.
Miles: "Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts. And that's terrifying to someone who's spent a lifetime avoiding those other pieces of themselves."
Daphne: "I don't want to scare people off,"
I say, throat aching.
He shakes his head.
Miles: "It's worth being scared. Trust me. You're worth it."
Ashleigh: "Hey. Remember me? Ashleigh? I always want to talk about it. So back up. Is this or is it not about you shitting where you eat, with regard to Miles?"
Daphne: "There was no shitting involved. I'm not that adventurous."
Ashleigh: "It happened! How was it? Did he just stare lovingly into your eyes the whole time? He seems like a loving-starer."
My cheeks heat.
Daphne: "No, we didn't make unblinking eye contact for forty minutes straight."
Ashleigh: "Forty minutes?"
she shrieks.
Daphne: "Not all at once!"
I hurry to add.
Daphne: "It was more like a very intense fifteen minutes, a cooldown period, and then a more well-paced thirty later."
Ashleigh: "Okay, now this surprises me."
Daphne: "Trust me. I'm well aware of how little sense he and I make."
She scoffs.
Ashleigh: "No, you two make perfect sense. I just would've imagined Miles would be so overeager that he'd sail straight through to the finish line, with no decorum."
Ashleigh: "Why? You're unbelievable happy when you're around him. That's kind of the main thing that matters."
Daphne: "I'm exactly the kind of person he can't handle being with, and he's exactly the kind who could destroy me."
Ashleigh: "Honey."
Ashleigh touches my hand.
Ashleigh: "That's how it works. That's love."
Her eyes drift in to the cut-in.
Ashleigh: "What a disgusting color."
Daphne: "It truly, truly is."
Her smile grows, eyes dropping to me.
Ashleigh: "Want to put on the TV and keep going?"
Daphne: "Do you?"
Ashleigh: "I think it will be fun to have an ugly room for a while. Duke couldn't abide ugliness. Or dogs."
She perks up.
Ashleigh: "Maybe I should get a dog."
She looks to me for feedback.
Daphne: "I think you should do exactly what you want to do."
Ashleigh: "Let's rob a bank."
Daphne: "I think you should get a dog."
Ashleigh: "Of course you can. You're Daphne Fucking Vincent."
Daphne: "Aww."
I though my chest.
Daphne: "You know my last and my middle name."
His hands fly up to cradle my jaw.
Miles: "I won't hurt you, Daphne."
Daphne: "You don't know that,"
I whisper.
Miles: "I know how hard I'll try."
Miles: "I want it to work,"
he insists.
Miles: "It can."
Daphne: "I think so too,"
I promise.
Daphne: "I can't imagine ever meeting anyone more wonderful than you, so if it doesn't work, I'm going to stay single, go to a sperm bank, and get into CrossFit."
A goofy smiles overtakes his face.
Miles: "You really think so?"
Daphne: "Not the CrossFit part. I'm incredibly lazy."
Miles: "That's it?"
he asks quietly.
Miles: "That's the speech?"
Daphne: "It was longer than that, but I've slept like four hours in the last three days, so that's what's left in my brain,"
I say scratchily.
Daphne: "You're so nice and so hot and so fun and funny, and you smell really good, and the brownies you made for last night were amazing."
Miles: "And you love me,"
he says softly.
Daphne: "So much."
Miles: "I thought I should shave,"
he says, by way of explanation.
Miles: "Since your mom's coming."
I fight a smile.
Daphne: "You once told me that women of a certain age love the scruffy thing."
Miles: "Oh, they do."
He leans against the sink.
Miles: "I can't have your mom falling in love with me."
Daphne: "I thought you were bringing a date. That guy you just went to Chicago with?"
Julia: "Ryan."
She rolls her eyes.
Julia: "He cut his fingernails on the bus ride."
"Ew," Ashleigh and I say in unison.
Julia nods solemnly.
Julia: "Flags so red, they veered toward maroon."