A Love Letter to Emily Henry

So tell me everything is not about me. But what if it is?

Welcome to the Book Report, a new newsletter series in which I tell you about a book I recently read and then make it about me.    

Book Report: Funny Story by Emily Henry

I don’t think Emily Henry (a person I’ve never met nor even had any real interaction with) is communicating with me through her books and what she posts online.  That would be quite a troubling belief.   But I do have this strange sort of superstitious feeling that the universe does, maybe sometimes, on occasion, give me a little nudge through Emily Henry (upon writing this, I don’t know if this is much more reasonable than Emily herself giving messages to me, but nevertheless).  

I read Beach Read right as I was beginning to edit my first novel.  No, not the ghost story that would become my first book, No Child of Mine, but a story before that one.  

Up until that point, I had never really seriously written fiction. I didn’t think I had permission to be a writer because I can’t write a complete sentence to save my life, truly don’t understand how commas work, and cannot ever spell definitely correctly (I had to ask Google how to spell it for this example).  

But somehow, I had now written a whole novel, and it was a mess.  I didn’t write chapters.  The pacing was non-existent.  The plot didn’t entirely make sense.  And I loved it, but I also knew it was pretty terrible.  So I’m looking at this messy, tangled, broken story, and I was like, what do I do now?

Writing the first draft had been easy.  But the editing, taking this mess and turning it into something good, felt like work.  And more than that, it felt like work I wasn’t equipped to do.  

Enter Beach Read. 

I loved Beach Read pretty early on in the novel.  I love January, our heroine, a romance writer who isn’t sure if she believes in love anymore, and Gus, the grumpy but brilliant neighbor, who’s also super hot and has been in love with January since college.  They’re both writers, and they trade genres.  It’s a gorgeous premise, but that’s not why I loved it.  

There’s one particular scene that takes place in the parking lot of a bar after a line-dancing date (you had to be there) that cracked my heart open.  It changed my entire perspective on this character and made them human in this beautifully broken, tangible way.  I remember finishing that scene and thinking I wanted to write books that feel like that one.  

I read Beach Read twice in a row like, finished the last page, and then opened it to the front again.  It’s the only book in my memory that I’ve ever done this with.  I read it once as a reader and once again as a writer. 

I took it apart.  I have a spreadsheet in which I deconstructed every scene, pulling apart motivations, character arcs, and b-storylines.  I didn’t take any creative writing classes in school, so Emily Henry became my teacher.  I used her books to learn how to write my own.  

This is not to mention that Emily Henry's books often feel like they were written for me. I know this is a common experience because I’ve seen dozens of women talk about how sometimes it feels as if she cracked open their heads while they were sleeping and pulled characters straight from their brains. Emily Henry is the kind of writer who often makes her readers feel a bit see-through.  

I could make a whole list of things, little nudges I’ve found tucked into Emily Henry’s words, but I don’t want you to worry about me.  I do have a deep fear that somehow Emily will read this, and then things will be weird if I ever get to meet her.

Okay, we’re finally getting to Funny Story, the book this whole thing is supposedly about. I waited a bit to read Emily Henry’s latest release because I wanted to savor it.  We only get a new EmHen once a year, so I wasn’t going to waste it. But I finally read it earlier this month, and it was everything I’ve come to expect from an EmHen novel.  I laughed out loud.  I openly wept in a park on a perfect summer day.  I considered purchasing Crocs.  

Once again, the universe (or maybe just my own misguided version of narcissism) gave me a little gift tucked into the pages of this Emily Henry novel.  The whole book is centered around an event that takes place on my birthday.  One thing about me: I love my birthday (probably because I’m a triple Leo).   The novel is a countdown, so I didn’t realize it was on my birthday until we got to August, the last few chapters of the book, a surprise tucked into the last pages.  

This book once again made some pieces of me feel see-through, as EmHen likes to do, but it felt like an invitation. Another whisper from the universe.  

I’ve mentioned it briefly, but I’m currently working on a romcom.  It’s always challenging to figure out how much I want to share in these early days because so much can change. Publishing timelines are so, so long, in the best-case scenario, if I have a fairytale princess version to publication, it wouldn’t be out until 2026.   And there’s also the very real (and honestly, likely) possibility that it never makes it past my computer’s hard drive.  

That being said, I’m excited about it.  It’s been lovely to work on a story where no one gets murdered.  If Emily Henry has taught me one thing, it is that joy is important.  And it’s also brave.  

X

Nichelle

P.S.  I would be remiss to talk about Emily Henry and not talk about Hello Girls, her hugely underrated YA book that she co-wrote with Brittany Cavallaro.  It’s one of my favorites. I'd highly recommend it if you haven’t read it and are waiting for your next hit of EmHen.