Rating: 96% | ★★★★★
Synopsis (from NetGalley): Then. Twenty-something writer Chani Horowitz is stuck. While her former MFA classmates are nabbing high-profile book deals, all she does is churn out puff pieces. Then she’s hired to write a profile of movie star Gabe Parker: her number one celebrity crush and the latest James Bond. All Chani wants to do is keep her cool and nail the piece. But what comes next proves to be life changing in ways she never saw coming, as the interview turns into a whirlwind weekend that has the tabloids buzzing—and Chani getting closer to Gabe than she had planned. Now. Ten years later, after a brutal divorce and a healthy dose of therapy, Chani is back in Los Angeles as a successful writer with the career of her dreams. Except that no matter what new essay collection or online editorial she’s promoting, someone always asks about The Profile. It always comes back to Gabe. So when his PR team requests that they reunite for a second interview, she wants to say no. She wants to pretend that she’s forgotten about the time they spent together. But the truth is that Chani wants to know if those seventy-two hours were as memorable to Gabe as they were to her. And so . . . she says yes. Spoiler-Free Review: If ever there were a catfish cover, this would be it. The comic-style cover art of Funny You Should Ask belies the novel's earnest messages on love, life, and career. Like the recently reviewed Birds of California by Katie Cotugno, Funny You Should Ask is a short, beautiful novel that catches the reader off-guard. (And seeing Cotugno thanked in the Acknowledgements section confirmed the tentative comparison I made while reading.) The story balances on Chani, a brilliantly three-dimensional character struggling with both her own desires and the reality of her situation. Growth—personal and professional—is a central insistence of this novel, and the dual timelines convey the characters' arcs without seeming too heavy-handed. Sussman's "newspaper articles" interspersed throughout the chapters are also microcosmic comments on today's celebrity-obsessed world, emphasizing the stories of both those in front of the microphone and those behind it. This novel made me gasp, laugh, and most of all, sigh in relief. It's tense, this up-and-down arc between Chani and Gabe, this will-they-won't-they. But what strikes me most about Funny You Should Ask is how quickly it converted me to a love-at-first-sight believer (in fiction, at least). Instalove in literature has never been my style—until now. Maybe it's the pining done right, or the undeniable chemistry between the Chani and Gabe, or simply the fact that this is a very, very good novel. Funny You Should Ask straddles the line between light romance and deep reflection and is certainly suitable enough for both contemporary literature lovers and romance lovers. Funny You Should Ask is out April 12, 2022. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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