Title: Romantic Comedy
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Year published: 2023
Category: Adult fiction (romance)
Pages: 240 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2023 Google Reading map): USA (CA, NY, MO, NM)
Summary: 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 her 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?
Review: The fact that I finished this book in one day speaks volumes about it and that I had nothing going on for the Sunday of a 3-day weekend (my friend had to cancel our plans).
This is a good solid book that I enjoyed. As usual, I didn't read the blurb right before reading it so all I knew was that it was written by a man, but from a woman's perspective. Oh wait. WRONG. When I finished, I looked at the author photo and Curtis is a woman. Ah, that makes way more sense as I thought the author did a really good job of the woman character's perspective. 🤣 Just goes to show that I shouldn't assume.
The Acknowledgements lists all the memoirs and nonfiction that Sittenfeld read so that she could get her fake Saturday Night Live TV show accurate and it really worked. It was fun to be behind the scenes on how that show is run, how the writing/skit process works, etc. I also liked that she played with the Hollywood celebrity dating a "normal" person trope. Maybe this is because I live in southern California in a town that has its fair share of celebrities.
As with all romances, knowing that they end up together is fun for me as a reader. I liked both Sally and Noah as characters and was glad they were together. If you want a semi-serious romantic comedy, this one is a good one.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Literary Escapes--Missouri
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