“Funny You Should Ask” - Elissa Sussman

📝 This might be the most disenchanted review I’ve ever written for a novel I actually finished reading. 

It started out promisingly giving “Evelyn Hugo” vibes because of the Hollywood star/aspiring journalist set up. FYSA is told both in the past (during and after the much ballyhooed First Interview of heart throb Gabe Parker) and in the present (10 years later) through the perspective of Chani Horowitz, a character I assume was intended to read as a plucky journalist. The reader is given Chani’s POV interspersed with film reviews, press clippings, blogs, and even Goodreads reviews. One of the best aspects of this novel was the wide variety of sources as they provided dimension - particularly when the protagonist doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the reader.

📝 I thought Sussman had a pleasantly realistic writing style, but this made it difficult to make the leap of faith necessary to accept the basis for the entire story. The romance between Chani and Gabe which forms the heart of FYSA, felt utterly implausible to me. We are given an account of their meet-cute by Chani herself, yet it’s hard to envision how the troubled star falls hard for the fangirl journo (her words). I kept asking myself “how was it a meaningful weekend for them if Chani was drunk/high the entire time”?! Help me understand.

📝 The only plot point that resonated for me was the second chances and redemption offered to wildly unprofessional men, while women get eviscerated for being fallible. 

📝 I think FYSA was meant to be a romance in the vein of “The Book of Lost and Found”. Unfortunately, it was not similarly compelling. The characters read more as angsty and impulsive teenagers than adults. It was impossible to buy in to their love-at-first-sight blossoming into a meaningful relationship.