Romantic Comedy Book Review

Do you remember the time on Friends when Phoebe says to the men, "You know, you always see these really beautiful women with these really 'nothing' guys."? Well, I do, and clearly, so does Curtis Sittenfeld and Romantic Comedy's main character Sally Milz. 

Sally works at a show called The Night Owls, which is basically Saturday Night Live, and she's seen time and time again how her male comedy writers - who are nothing to write home about - hook up and marry beautiful celebrity females. She envisions a sketch where if it went the other way around (gorgeous men dating average women), the men would be arrested for breaking the law.

And she pitches that sketch during the same week that hottie musician Noah Brewster does double duty as musical guest and host. 

Can you guess what might end up happening?


In typical rom-com fashion, Noah and Sally hit it off while working together on a sketch. Of course, Sally screws it up in the end. But two years later, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Noah and Sally start up an email correspondence. And then a Facetime correspondence. And then an in-person correspondence. 

Can you guess that Sally is going to screw it up again?

As predictable as the book might seem, it was still fun to read the witty banter between the two main characters and learn more about the inner workings of a late-night comedy show. (I seriously LOL'd at a joke about Genghis Khan saying "We can do hard things".) 

And for those of us average women who wished that one day we'd marry a Backstreet Boy or something, this book lets you live out your fantasy. Now will it change anything in society? Probably not. But a girl can still dream, can't she?

(Also, how do I get to be BFFs with Sittenfeld?)

Romantic Comedy is published by Random House and is on bookstore shelves now. I received a free e-ARC from the publisher.

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