A review by amateur_bookworm
Funny Story by Emily Henry

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

My summary:

Daphne Vincent is devastated when her fiancé, Peter, breaks up with her on the morning after his bachelor party—for his longtime *platonic* best friend, Petra. In desperation of needing a place to live, Daphne ends up moving into the apartment of Petra’s ex, Miles. Her and Miles generally stay out of each other’s way for weeks until one night of wallowing leads to a fake dating lie in an attempt to make their exes jealous. As the fake dating ruse leads to friendship, the blur between which feelings are real or fake becomes more confusing. 


My thoughts:

I read Funny Story in April and adored it. It is a five star read for me. The audiobook was great but I enjoyed reading it more than I did listening to it. 

This is the soonest I’ve listened to an audiobook after reading the book. It’s just how my Libby hold came up. Honestly, I think I should have delayed it longer to really enjoy this as an audiobook. My favorite audiobooks are of books that I have already read and liked, but this was just a little too soon after reading it to really enjoy it for a second time. 

Julia Whelan did a great job narrating this book. As a single narrator of a very long book, her performance was overall really good. But, it’s just a very long time to listen to the same narrator, even breaking it up over more than a week. I mentally checked out a bit through the last third of it. 

It’s funny to me how reading a book can give you certain vibes that just aren’t there listening to the same book narrated to you. I had the same experience with reading and then listening to Bride by Ali Hazelwood. I am a mood reader and totally rate books mostly off of how they make me feel, and it’s just interesting to me in the difference I find between some books and their audiobooks. I think reading certain sentences or paragraphs can have a much different impact than listening to the same. 

I think I will always prefer reading versus listening to audiobooks, and that’s is reflected here in my rating for the book (five stars!) versus the audiobook (4.25? stars). But whether you’ve already read this book or not, this is a great audiobook. 

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