Romantic Comedy
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
Brought to you by Penguin.
THE AMAZING NEW NOVEL FROM CURTIS SITTENFELD: 'A rollercoaster of modern love and dating' STYLIST
'One of my all-time favourite authors. A brilliantly written, funny page-turner, I want to read it all again' PANDORA SYKES
A TV script writer thinks she's over romance, until an unlikely love interest upends all her assumptions: a humorous, subversive and tender-hearted novel from the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of Rodham, American Wife and Prep.
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Life is (not)* a Romantic Comedy...
With a series of heartbreaks under her belt, Sally Milz - successful script writer for a legendary late-night TV comedy show - has long abandoned the search for love.
But when her friend and fellow writer begins to date a glamorous actress, he joins the growing club of interesting but average-looking men who get romantically involved with accomplished, beautiful women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch, poking fun at this 'social rule'. The reverse never happens for a woman.
Then Sally meets Noah, a pop idol with a reputation for dating models. But this isn't a romantic comedy - it's real life. Would someone like him ever date someone like her?
Skewering all our certainties about why we fall in love, ROMANTIC COMEDY is a witty and probing tale of how the heart will follow itself, no matter what anyone says. It is Curtis Sittenfeld at her most sharp, daring and compassionate best.
'Curtis Sittenfeld is in a league of her own' GUARDIAN
'Anyone who reads Sittenfeld will read anything she ever writes' THE TIMES
© Curtis Sittenfeld 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
When jaded comedy writer Sally Milz first encounters earnest musical superstar—and maturing heartthrob—Noah Brewster, as he prepares to host the late night variety show The Night Owls, her cynical outlook brings about an abrupt end to the tentative beginnings of a mutual flirtation. Wounded by an unrequited love from the past and insecure about their mismatched social capital, Sally second-guesses the sincerity of their connection, and they part ways on less than pleasant terms. Two years later, the forced isolation of the pandemic sets the scene for an affectionate exchange of emails, initiated by Noah, and Sally is forced to contend with some serious challenges to her misguided worldview—or risk losing out on love. A glancing awareness of America’s late-night variety show Saturday Night Live—and the tabloid-friendly exploits of former cast member Pete Davidson—enriches the satirical element of Romantic Comedy, the broad details of which are inspired heavily by its real-life counterpart. Even without this background knowledge, the vivid precision with which Curtis Sittenfeld constructs the worlds Sally moves between—the zippy energy of her workplace, the unassuming familiarity of her childhood home, Noah’s affluent Californian mansion—colours in the spaces this understanding of pop culture might otherwise fill in. Come for the witty social observations, which Sittenfeld interrogates with an even hand, but stay for the thoroughly charming and satisfyingly realistic romance.