Curtis Sittenfeld's New York Times bestselling books have been translated into thirty languages and include the novels Prep, American Wife, Eligible, and Rodham, and the story collection You Think It, I'll Say It. Sittenfeld's stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories, of which she was the 2020 guest editor. She lives with her family in Minneapolis. You can find her online at curtissittenfeld.com.
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under hear belt, she's long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. But when Sally's friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who've gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called The Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman. Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week's show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn't a romantic comedy—it's real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her . . . right? With her keen observations and her trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Curtis Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.
What I enjoyed about this book is Sittenfeld's sharper look at the human—and especially female—existence. Some of Sally's inner monologue moments were intensely relatable, even if Sally as a character overall wasn't. I enjoyed her ability to be observant about the world around her, and about herself in certain moments. Sittenfeld clearly does have skill for keeping the focus tight in this regard. I loved especially how a lot of Sally's worldview was challenged—Sittenfeld really built up Sally's version of the world for readers early on, so that when other characters came in and started to question it or even tear it down, readers like me could feel the impact and understand Sally's reactions.
The story itself is focused more on the SNL retelling, TNO, than romantic comedies. Sittenfeld clearly did her comedy show research (which, if it wasn't evident in the prose itself, would have been by the acknowledgments section!) and while at some points I did feel lost in the terminology, mostly that was overshadowed by my excitement about getting a fictional look into the comedy world. The romance is closed-door and celebrity, and doesn't at all feel like a romantic comedy. Instead, the romance feels very reflective of what a real-life connection would be like (meaning, there is miscommunication and frustration and insecurity), which made the romance element of the story feel more real. For big romance fans like myself, Romantic Comedy won't feel like a romantic comedy in the way we're accustomed to it, but Sittenfeld does take the time to develop a romance that coincides nicely with the character development of the main character.
I'm going to be honest, I thought this book had released at least a month before it actually did based on the amount of times I'd seen the cover all over bookstagram. Based on the cover and part of the tagline alone, I knew it was just the kind of book that seemed perfect to me, so I felt pretty cheated when the COVID-19 pandemic part of the story came up. I think it's difficult for me to describe why this rubbed me the wrong way so much. In general, I actually appreciate that there's a story that exists (even if it is fictional) of people falling in love during the pandemic (because I'm sure there's real-life examples of it, too). I empathized with some of the email conversations between Sally and Noah during lockdown, even if other parts of it made me cringe. Knowing that they were isolated while getting their footing romantically seemed like a great opportunity for Sally to overcome her insecurities about Noah's fame versus her own independence. Overall, the COVID-19 storyline works for the story, but it just didn't sit well with me, and I think it's because there was no hint of that coming in the blurb, despite it being over 50% of the book's content.
I'm still feeling rather conflicted about Romantic Comedy, so I hope to chat with more people soon about some of these feelings! In the meantime, you can find more from Curtis Sittenfeld at curtissittenfeld.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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