ROMANTIC COMEDY

by Curtis Sittenfeld

I so enjoyed this traditional yet contemporary love story made up of sparkly, witty, intelligent thoughts and banter between two people who fall in love with each other’s minds. Sittenfeld creates a world I couldn’t wait to get back to, and a story that I needed to keep reading, because I was desperate to know if the couple in question would have a happy ending, and I wept choking sobs of joy when they did. (Not really a spoiler. Don’t all rom coms have to have happy endings?) The book has an interesting structure. The first part takes you so into the manic life of sketch writer on working on a weekly comic show (think Saturday Night Live) that you truly experience her skewed world. That’s where she meets, and develops an all-consuming crush on, the man she’s sure she can’t have. The second part is all emails: the kind of getting-to-know-one-another, soul-baring communication that I wish I’d had before deciding to sleep with most of the people I’ve slept with. The third part is both satisfyingly romantic and excruciatingly will-they-won’t they. A non-complicated, relaxing and delightful read.