Out of all the novels by Curtis Sittenfeld that I have read (American Wife, Eligible and Rodham), Romantic Comedy feels like a fluff piece. Or, more obviously, it feels like a romantic comedy. This is the perfect book if you are looking for something light and fun to read that has romance and a happy ending.

Romantic Comedy opens in 2018 and is about a writer named Sally Milz who works on a comedy show called The Night Owls (TNO), which is based on Saturday Night Live. Sally is in her late thirties. She was married briefly in her twenties before getting a job writing for TNO but has not had a serious relationship since. Many of her male colleagues date and/or marry actresses/models/singers who are way more attractive than them. When the latest of her male colleagues (clearly inspired by Pete Davidson) begins dating a glamourous actress, Sally becomes fed up with men being able to date women out of their league, but women not being able to date men out of their league. She pitches a sketch ridiculing this social phenomenon the week famous pop star Noah Brewster is hosting TNO. But unexpectedly for Sally, she and Noah hit it off, and Sally thinks he might be making a move on her when she puts her foot in it and he backs off.

Fast forward to 2020 when everyone is in COVID lockdown, and Noah reaches out to Sally by email. They end up emailing each other fast and furiously over a few days, getting to really know each other, when Sally then decides to drive from Kansas (where she has been staying during the lockdown) to LA to meet up with Noah in person.

For a novel that has the word “comedy” in the title and is inspired by a comedy sketch show, Romantic Comedy is not very funny (just like SNL the last time I watched it – ba dum tss). I did not start to find this novel humorous until the third part of the story when Sally drives out to LA to meet Noah, and she starts agonizing over things like farting in front of him or making sure she does her poop in the bathroom that is farthest away from him, you know, all the relatable stuff that I know I used to worry about when my husband and I first got together. What I like best about Romantic Comedy, though, is the warm fuzzy feelings it gave me as Sally realizes that she has a crush on Noah and that he has a crush on her in return.

Romantic Comedy does commentate on the savage way women are treated, more specifically when an “average” woman dates a really, really hot man, but in all honestly, this book is not going to magically change our societal discourse. There will always be a double standard to how men are treated versus how women are treated. And the thing about Sally is that she is not even described as an unattractive woman. She is “pretty”, not “beautiful” or “hot”. She has an average woman’s body, meaning she has a bit of a belly and thicker thighs. But who cares if she is a good person, if she doesn’t look like a skinny supermodel, our society is going to judge her more harshly. So Sally, like me and probably every other woman on this planet, has a low sense of self worth and does not think she is good enough to date a super attractive man like Noah. In the end, Romantic Comedy is about learning how to love oneself, and how to cancel out all that noise when it tells you that you are not good enough. Even though it is not as funny as I was hoping it would be, I still enjoyed reading Romantic Comedy.