Sometimes a book comes along at exactly the right moment, and your circumstances mean that you get all the more out of said book. This usually happens when I read nonfiction – something will be going on in my life and I happen across a book that is reassuring or affirming in precisely the way I need at that time. When I read Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld it was right-book-at-the-right-time for different reasons. I was on holiday with my friends (yes, this review is long overdue). One of those friends is the person I often refer to here as my ‘best reading buddy’. Coincidentally, she had also brought Romantic Comedy along as her holiday reading. So we sat on the beach and by the pool, laughing and loving the same bits of the story at virtually the same time. And neither of us wanted the book (or the holiday) to end.

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for a Saturday Night Live-esque comedy show. She’s had her fair share of heartbreaks, and although not cynical about love, she’s long abandoned searching for it, instead settling for the occasional hook-up, career success and reliable friends.

“If you’re our age and single, dating kind of has to be an act of reckless optimism, right? The triumph of hope over experience?”

When Sally’s friend and fellow writer, Danny Horst (described as talented but average-looking) gets engaged to a glamorous actress, Sally writes a sketch that riffs on the the phenomenon of ordinary men pairing off with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women, and that the reverse never happens. But when she meets the show’s guest host, a pop star named Noah Brewster, there is an immediate spark. Suddenly Sally finds herself in her own ‘romantic comedy’, despite wanting to get back to her ‘…regular non-hopeful, non-tormenting life.‘

I enjoyed so many aspects of this book, from Sally second-guessing her feelings (and discussing it with her friends) –

“What if we run out of things to say? What if I fart in front of him?”
“If this is a real relationship, then those things will for sure happen. And if you get pregnant, you’ll fart in front of him so much that both of you will only notice the rare moments when you’re not farting in front of him.”

to the smart and funny dialogue –

“I’m sorry to beg for compliments, but aren’t I the least cool person you know?”
“I don’t mean I’d take advice from you on what sneakers to buy. I mean cool like having your shit together…”

The structure was particularly good. The first third is set in 2018, against the chaos and tension of writing for the show. The middle section is composed entirely of emails between Sally and Noah, as they both endure COVID lockdowns on opposite sides of the country. I’m not ordinarily a fan of epistolary stories but the email exchanges were wonderful, with both Sally and Noah ‘courting’, and revealing parts of themselves and their history in a measured and deliberate way. It’s absolutely charming, and it was in this section that both my reading buddy and I were audibly cheering and groaning at Sally and Noah’s progress and missteps.

Yes, this is still me.
(Okay, my inner English major is experiencing a lot of turmoil right now. I want you to know that I know that, grammatically, sentence one should be “This is still I”, but I also don’t want you to think I’m uptight. Have I successfully split the difference?…)

Being pen-pals transitions to something more, and in the final third of the book, Sally and Noah meet again.

And it felt like an astonishing miracle. If this was all I ever got, it would be the best thing that had ever happened to me, and if this was all I ever got, I’d never stop wanting more of it.

Like any rom-com, it’s not smooth sailing and Sally faces the unique challenges and insecurities that come with dating a celebrity (including the paparazzi seeing them together and assuming that Sally is his personal assistant because he’d ‘..never date a woman who looks like that’). Incidentally, when Sally questions Noah’s interest in her, she wonders if she’d ‘…been holding on to the belief that, as with many a romantic comedy heroine, I was far more beautiful than I realized?’ Noah has his own doubts, wondering if Sally is genuinely interested in him as a person, or him as a star.

The final section exposes the deeper themes, notably, the price of celebrity fame; the challenges associated with your ‘art’ becoming your work; and the true cost of someone else financially supporting you.

This book is a pleasure from start to finish and in Romantic Comedy, Sittenfeld has created 309 pages of holiday-reading-perfection.

“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.”
He grinned again. “I didn’t tell you at the time, but I know exactly where that line is. When it’s happening to other people, it’s cheesy. When it’s happening to you, it’s wonderful.”

5/5

In the mirror, we made eye contact, and he smiled grimly. “No offense, but you’re giving such intense vibes right now of ‘Honey, I know you didn’t get invited to prom, but wouldn’t it be way more fun to stay in and bake cookies with Dad and me?'”
“I do have a delicious recipe for snickerdoodles,” I said, and he didn’t laugh.