HUMOR ME

With a smart if confused young woman as her contemporary Meg Ryan, Shook turns a lighthearted rom-com into a complicated exploration of romantic love—and, more importantly, friendship—among today’s 20-somethings.

Like the author, 25-year-old narrator Presley Fry has an androgynous name and moved from Georgia to New York after college graduation. She works as a talent-booking assistant for a popular late-night TV show, having landed the job through a connection—Susan Clark, her mother’s childhood best friend, who’s now married to a network executive. Presley lives with her best friend, Isabelle, in the East Village, which she prefers to the bougie West Village. Having survived a difficult childhood, she uses the art of witty deflection to avoid discussing uncomfortable emotions like ambivalence about her alcoholic mother, who died 18 months ago, or her attraction to a work friend. That unacknowledged attraction between smart, “plain and unnoticeable” girl and sensitive boy sets up the familiar rom-com structure, but Presley’s explanation as to why she loves Sleepless in Seattle—because her idol Nora Ephron wanted to make not merely a romantic movie but a movie about romantic movies—seems to express the author’s true intentions. Through her characters, Shook susses out romantic love in the Gen Z era: While Isabelle searches for girlfriends on Hinge, Presley prefers what she calls “business casual” with men she meets on Tinder. Male misconduct within the ambiguities of daily interaction (with shoutouts to Harvey Weinstein–level transgressors) serves as context for the plot. But other issues dominate: Presley’s intense love affair with Manhattan itself, her passionate professional ambitions, her struggle to face her imperfect mother’s role in her life. Most important here are the relationships between friends. Presley finds herself in an awkward but increasingly sweet cross-generational friendship with Susan even after Susan’s high-profile husband is outed for sexual misbehavior. And Presley puts her commitments to Isabelle before everything, even a man she may love.

Charming, optimistic escapism with a more serious undertone of feminist solidarity.