“Romantic Comedy” by Curtis Sittenfeld

This is the kind of book I usually hate. I mean, if I hadn't already read a book of short stories by this author that I really liked, and if this novel hadn't been recommended by [insert entity here that a literary amnesiac can't remember but was probably Oh, Reader magazine], I wouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole, no matter how witty and intelligent the main character was. 

I actually bought this book for Sam for his birthday. (Six months ago.) It's not Sam's usual thing either, but he *did* like One Day and The Versions of Us, both of which I would lump into the same category as this one. Aaaaaand yes I was interested in reading it myself after that [unremembered] recommendation. Unfortunately, without the interesting hook of once-a-year updates, or the distinctive alternate universe idea, there must not have been anything in this book for Sam, because . . . he hated it. I don't think he made it more than fifty pages before he gave up. 

I won't say I was undaunted by Sam's reaction, but I still wanted to give it a try. And I'm glad I did, because it turns out I didn't hate it. It definitely wasn't my favorite book ever ever, and I wouldn't recommend it unreservedly, but I did enjoy reading it. So maybe the characters' lives were too different from the average Joe (or Josephine, or me) to seem realistic, but that was actually part of the (vicarious) fun. And somehow the characters, despite their charmed lives, did seem real (which I can only attribute to good writing). 

Oh, right--what's it about? Sally Milz is one of the longer-term writers for the TV comedy show The Night Owls (a super-obvious surrogate for Saturday Night Live). She meets Noah Brewster, who is maybe not the male equivalent for Taylor Swift because apparently she's currently bigger than any worldwide phenomenon has ever been? But Noah is maybe the next tier down, as a talented, beloved, hunky pop star who stereotypically should only be dating models, though actually (actually) he is interested in Sally. And then there's that attraction-repulsion-attraction cycle that keeps you hanging on for more, only it's interspersed with personal assistants and mansions in Topanga Canyon and private jets punctuated by a bit of pandemic caretaking in Kansas City or whatever location is a substitute for bland middle America, and the underlying question is: are they going to live happily ever after? 

The only other thing I can think to say about this book is that it is weirdly, weirdly specific about what life is like when you work for a famous weekly improv comedy show.