Well, Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld was everything I wanted it to be! I’ve heard such good buzz about it and it completely delivered. No shock that its genre is indeed a romantic comedy – all done in such a genuinely funny and heart-warming way that you can’t help but fall for, and root for, the lead character, Sally Milz.
Opening sentence: You should not, I’ve read many times, reach for your phone first thing in the morning – the news, social media, and emails all disrupt the natural stages of waking and create stress – which is how I’ll preface the fact that when I reached for my phone first thing one morning and learned that Danny Horst and Annabel Lily were dating, I was furious.
Think you don’t like romantic comedies? Think again!
I would describe Romantic Comedy as the perfect read for people who claim not to like romantic comedy as a genre. It is just so amazingly well done in how it takes the genre and applies such a contemporary, funny, dry and witty layer. It tackles head on the elements you might reject about the genre – such a unexpected, all-in love and cheesiness:
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I once heard a smart person point out that it’s hard to determine where the dividing line is between cheesiness and acceptable emotional extravagance.’
Structured in three parts, the first tells of how Sally and Noah meet. Sally is a comedy sketch writer on an Saturday Night Live type show, The Night Owls. She lives her life on a hectic schedule (very much not for me) of writing sketches all through the night, last minute, frantic rewrites and being slightly isolated from everyone else on the 9-5.
She is from Kansas City but lives in New York and was married in her early 20s (she’s in her 30s now) and has a wary and cynical approach to love and relationships.
When international super-star, singer/songwriter Noah Brewster is both the host and musical guest of The Night Owls, he crosses paths with Sally and something unexpected happens…
How had I developed a consuming, imbalance-inducing crush on Noah fucking fake-surfer Make-Love-in-July Brewster?
Romantic Comedy uses the 2020 worldwide pandemic as a backdrop to the latter half of the story – with the second section of the book being Sally and Noah’s email correspondence as they get to know each other a little better – albeit in a removed, virtual way.
At the risk of destroying my favourite hobby of quarantine, because I’m in danger of confusing the romance of emailing with the romance of romance.
Third section is also set in during lockdown one, but our lead romantics finally meet in real life. This was a clever use of the pandemic as a setting as 2020 was such a trigger for a new way of thinking for so many people. There was heartache and loss, but also the realisation that you have to just go for things.
Sally and Noah forever
I was just so invested in Sally and Noah’s relationship and think Sally’s character played a huge part in that. Her insecurity was highly relatable – pushing away from the thing she wants most but not being able to stop herself. Also how her self-esteem took a battering when dealing with backlash from press when pap shots leak of her and Noah.
I just love Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing style and how easy Romantic Comedy is to read. It has such dry, understated humour running throughout with plenty of LOL moments. It absolutely lives up to its Romantic Comedy title perfectly.
Sally reminded me of Maggie from Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey, if you’re looking for another read similar to this.
- Get your copy of Romantic Comedy here;
- Published by Random House;
- 309 pages;
- My rating:
Books on the 7:47 
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