Emily Henry's 'Funny Story' centers a new character in rom-com tropes

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Two childhood best friends realize they're in love and break up with their significant others to be together – that's a classic romantic-comedy storyline. But in her book, Funny Story, author Emily Henry wonders about some of the other forgotten cast members: what happens to the people who got dumped along the way? In today's encore episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Henry about writing male characters that go to therapy, leaning into the cringey moments of falling in love and looking up to her own parents' relationship.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. It seems like every time I've walked into a bookstore the past couple years, whether indie or big box, there's an Emily Henry book on the front table. The super popular romance writer joins us on the pod today. Her new book is titled Funny Story, and it's about a love quadrangle. I guess NPR's Wanda Summers will lay it out.
0:22.8	But they get to talking about writing romance novels. And Henry says this thing about how,
0:27.8	yeah, sure, the romance genre is kind of embarrassing. But you know what else is? Falling
0:33.4	in love. That's ahead.
0:36.3	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:41.0	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
0:45.5	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
0:47.6	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:51.3	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
0:54.9	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:00.5	Picture this. You have the dream job, a dream home, and are planning a dream wedding with the love of your life.
1:06.5	And then said love of your life realizes they are in love with someone else. That is the exact
1:12.5	nightmare scenario children's librarian Daphne Vincent finds herself in at the start of Emily
1:17.7	Henry's new book, Funny Story. Daphne's fiance Peter breaks up with her for his childhood
1:23.5	best friend and her plans are thrown into chaos. All this leads Daphne to move in with Miles,
1:29.4	a guy who knows all too well what Daphne is going through since the childhood friend who ran
1:34.8	off with Peter is Miles's now ex-girlfriend Petra. It's a premise that Henry wondered about
1:41.0	after writing about a best friendship turn more in a different novel.
1:45.1	Every time I kind of investigate one kind of trope or storyline, I'm always curious, like,
1:49.7	ooh, what happens to, you know, the rest of the cast? What about the woman who just got dumped?
1:54.6	She's not the star of this rom-com. And I wanted to make her the star.
1:57.4	I asked Henry, what shades of Daphne she saw in herself? That feeling of
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.