This was a quick sweet romance between two lifelong best friends. Sam was giving me intense Pete Davidson vibes due to the characters career and past relationships. I did enjoy it but he was all I could picture. Bree felt like your typical female romance character. I will say the actual romance was lacking for me. I typically feel a bigger attachment to the two characters in a romance novel but it wasn’t there. If you want a quick relatively clean romance this is for you!

2.5 Stars. Stand-up comedian and cast member of an SNL-like sketch comedy show, Sam is dealing with the consequences of his ex-fiancee writing a hit song about him and their split. He's embarrassed and touchy about the subject and turns to his best friend Bree for comfort and a place to stay away from the paparazzi. Bree has always loved Sam but life in New York is no longer what she wants it to be so she is interviewing for jobs elsewhere. The two at on their feeling for one another one night and then must navigate their changing relationship.

I don't think Emma's books are for me. This is the second one I've read that has left me disappointed. In friends to lovers stories, especially ones with unrequited love, I want to feel the longing and rising tension. There was none of that. I felt zero chemistry between Sam and Bree even while they were being intimate. The book focused more on their respective careers than it did on them as a couple. I just wanted more of anything really, because honestly i was bored by the end and it is not a long enough book to warrant being boring. Alas.

Thank you to NetGalley and Montlake for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bree and Sam are longtime best friends. Bree has had feelings for Sam for a long time but he has not known. Sam is a comedian whose career is suffering because of his ex who wrote a song about him. Rita has decided to take a job that is far away because of her unrequited feelings. As they are together in this apartment feelings, arise between the two. This is an emotional and romantic book with banter that still makes you laugh. I love how there are light moments in the book but yet you can always see that there are emotions involved and it’s a very intense type of emotion between both characters. I would definitely recommend this book to read.

A pretty sweet friends-to-lovers romance. The guy, Sam, is a comedian working on what is basically SNL. Bree is an urban planner. They're so clearly ride or die for each other from the first page, the majority of the conflict actually comes from their jobs. Sam is going through some rough personal stuff and - like many men I know - has absolutely no tools to deal with it in a healthy way. I'm glad the books ends with him getting some much needed therapy. I'm also glad that Emma Barry handled Sam's ex with some grace, rather than making her a cartoon villain.

A good cookie, all in all.

3 stars

This was friends to lovers yet I didn't felt the chemistry between our mcs which is a shame because the story was fun and wholesome but if the romance doesn't work then the book loses some of the "magic". Still, this was a fun read.

3 stars

Bree is an urban planner in NYC and her best friend, Sam, is a comedian on a sketch comedy show. Sam is impulsive and self-destructive, which isn't helped by how famous he is. The two grew up together with both experiencing bad home lives. The two have bonded over their upbringings and can't seem to let others in fully. Except Bree has been in love with Sam for years and doesn't think he could ever love her back.

The writing was great and the heavier subjects were handled well. I really wanted to like these characters a lot more than I did. I understood Bree's need for control, but she was also kind of a doormat. And Sam, well Sam was kind of a jerk to people (not Bree) and didn't seem like he'd ever finished growing up. I did root for them, mostly because I loved the idea of Bree getting her happily ever after.

I feel like the ending really helped this book and I would recommend it to friends who like these tropes.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sam is a famous comedian on a weekly sketch show. Bree is his urban planner best friend--they grew up together in a crummy situation in small town America. When Sam's pop star ex-girlfriend writes a hit song about him, he lays low at her tiny studio apartment and their friendship... evolves.

While this is an enjoyable read, it didn't hit for me. Bree has loved Sam since she was 12. She's has the opportunity to take a dream job and move, but is worried how the ever-volatile Sam will react. It's not the healthiest of relationships.

There's some solid yearning, and Sam does eventually do some work on himself, but I don't see myself re-reading this story, unlike others from this author.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Sam can’t escape the smash hit “Lost Boy” because, well, he is the lost boy. His pop-singer ex immortalized him in a song about his childish ways, and now his comedy career is on the line.

At least he still has Bree, his best friend and confidante. Bree has always been there for Sam, but she’s never revealed her biggest secret: she’s in love with him. To help herself move on, Bree applies for her dream job across the country—and doesn’t say a thing to Sam.

But as Sam tries to resuscitate his career, he turns to Bree for support—and maybe more. In the confines of her tiny apartment, they share a different dynamic. A charged dynamic. But she’s his friend. He can’t be falling for her.

Except he is.

Are his feelings for Bree just funny business? Or is their smoldering attraction the real deal?

Caroline and Lisa both read Emma Barry's Funny Guy and are here to share their thoughts on the novel.

Lisa: I’m a huge sucker for best friends-to-lovers romances, especially when you have two people bonding via childhood trauma.  I also love forced proximity romances. But you know a book’s in big trouble when one of the characters is much less interesting than the other - and we’re supposed to root for them to end up together.

Caroline: I 100% agree. Sam is a hugely vivid character. Very believable and deeply messed up. I am reasonably certain Bree would have come across as generic and not terribly charismatic in any novel, but set against Sam, the contrast is even starker. She spends the novel worried about being nothing more than a dwarf planet wobbling around Sam’s star, and rightfully so, because that’s exactly what she is.

Lisa: Sam is a wonderful character, and he’s built carefully and is incredibly interesting to follow. It’s so easy to sympathize with and like him.

Caroline: I really liked reading about him, but he struck me more as the hero of a fiction novel than a romance novel. I don’t mind that he’s flawed - again, I enjoyed reading him! - but I don’t think he’s healthy for a relationship.

Lisa: That’s interesting because yeah, I could see how he straddles the line between WF and romance with his traumas and anxieties. Generally, though, he works as a character, and I liked the Bree/Sam relationship to a degree, but it isn’t all that exciting. Sam is a decent guy who’s been through A Lot and who is now the center of some rather humiliating stuff.

Caroline: I liked some things about the relationship. I definitely understood how the two of them are already in a relationship, just not one that included sex. But their relationship sits too much in the past. Okay, Sam values Bree because she knows where he came from - but what does she bring to the table for their future?

Lisa: Yeah, the fact is they’re both away from their abusive families - so what do they have in common now? Bree isn’t interesting or lively like Sam is, so the answer can only be ‘not much.’ I don’t mind the fact that the relationship was premade, but I think the difference might have been solved with some flashbacks showing them as kids and teens.

Caroline: Yes, but honestly, they needed better scenes in the present, too!

Lisa: The biggest problem with Bree is that she’s too much of an eeping mouse. There needs to be more of her to make her interesting but she barely exists.

Caroline: Ultimately, her ‘arc’ is ‘I am too dependent on Sam, so I need to break out’, followed by ‘He needs me right now so I can’t’, followed by ‘I’m still totally emotionally dependent on Sam, but in a new city, so this means we are equal’. He bends towards her, but that still doesn’t mean she grows.

Lisa: For a novel that’s really supposed to be about them making a home away from their horrible parents, they end up in a bit of a codependent relationship, don’t they?

Caroline: Bree is Sam’s emotional support animal.

Lisa: That hits it right on the head! Like, I’m sitting here going ‘is this romance romantic?’ and my answer’s kinda ‘eh?’

Caroline: I agree. For me, a romance has to bring the leads together in a situation that seems healthier and happier than they were alone, and one for which I see a good long-term prognosis. This one just didn’t give me that.

Lisa: That’s a huge issue here, because you have to wonder if they’re just teaming up to incubate their own pain.

Caroline: Okay, change of topic: Celebrity-civilian novels often cast the non-famous partner as a refuge of normalcy, a person the celebrity can go to and escape the pressures of living up to their role. I didn’t really get that here.

Lisa: I just read Lily Chu’s The Comeback where a K-Pop performer poses as an ordinary guy and ends up falling in love with a lawyer, and that handles the outré weirdness K-Pop idols have to go through so much better than the way Funny Guy presents the topic of celebrity. Sam’s big enough to have a Netflix special but lord, people do not treat him that way. It feels like everything surrounding them should be bigger.

Caroline: The celebrity parts of Sam’s career are off, but the professional parts seem authentic. I liked seeing him as an ‘elder statesman’ at his workplace, mentoring a new comedy writer and supporting him against bullying. His head-butting with his female boss and his female co-star work bestie, are also great because it shows him having nuanced relationships with women he isn’t having sex with. That’s something a lot of authors miss.

Lisa: Emma Barry does a great job of making me care about that part of Sam’s life and yeah, that really worked. But ugh, again, compare and contrast with Bree!

Caroline: Yeah. We’re definitely ‘told’ not ‘shown’ what a great urban planner she is. And even at the moments when I bought that characterization, I got depressed, because I genuinely didn’t buy that leaving New York was the right step for her. Maybe it’s possible to spend over a decade specializing in New York urban issues and head to another city, but the author didn’t convince me of it. I felt that Bree had been in New York for Sam, and now she’s going to leave New York over Sam, and her career will be whatever it has to be.

Lisa: Her being ‘lesser’ than him really is a big problem here. What grade are we going for here? I’m going with a C+, and much of that is for Barry’s always-terrific writing and Sam being Sam. The romance wasn’t too convincing and I felt like Bee was just a meh character, and if it’s not romantic I can’t give it any more than a middling grade.

Caroline: I’m going to go B-. When I give a grade in the C range, it means I think our readers should give the book a miss, but Sam alone is worth the price of admission here. It’s just too bad Bree isn’t in his weight class.

I am friendly with the author on social media and I have enjoyed some of her previous books that I have read (Chick Magnet was absolutely awesome).

I see comments about who the inspiration behind the characters is but since I am not American and don't follow celebrities that much, I read the book without making any connections with real life people.

This is not a cute romcom if that is what you expect based on the title. It’s what the blurb says it is – heartfelt, emotional contemporary friends-to-lovers romance. While I liked some aspects of it, in the end it was not my favourite book by Emma Barry.

We get a heroine who has been in love with the hero since they were children and the hero is completely/mostly unaware because he is emotionally stunted.

I was not sold of them being friends for over 15 years and her being in love with him all the time. Even if I could get past my doubts over the premise , I had really difficult time liking the hero. He acted out, self-sabotaging his career and romantic relationships, relying on the heroine to keep him grounded and out of trouble and at the same time refusing to seek professional help. He seems like a big man-child and I couldn’t see what the heroine saw in him. His behavior is explained with childhood trauma over messed up family but it fell flat for me. I think the issue for this that so much of the story is just telling the reader some facts – about the present or the past and so little of showing – how the characters act in certain situations. I don’t know to express it better, there wasn’t enough dynamics.

On the plus side, there were some really memorable tender moments – him taking care of her when she got a cold, him calling out billionaires for who they are, her caring for the people in the architecture designs she makes.

The writing is lovely, there are some poignant comments about our society, including definitions of personal and professional success but in the end this story is a mixed bag of good and not so good for me.

My second Emma Barry read - I enjoyed it well enough, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting, or I guess hoping it would be. This is a best friends since childhood turns a bit more turns out to be long-lived unrequited feelings on both parts, and as expected… turns to lovers, with a whole, long, very complicated situation to get there.

Sam is a big NYC comedian (not just stand-up clubs, but big sketch comedy shows on TV, which he’s involved in writing - think SNL). Bree is his best friend since they were kids, and he can always call on her whenever he needs anything, including when his pop star ex fiancé releases a huge new song, all about him and his life - “Lost Boy.” He needs to disappear from public while the uproar from the song and his shouting at people dies down, and he stops risking losing everything. The problem is, there’s some feelings happening, especially with the close proximity in her tiny apartment.

Bree hides a secret about a new job and leaving bestie Sam in his time of need and when he’s finally seeming to show some reciprocal feelings, but she can’t let a tiny potential of more than friendship change her future plans and moving on.

I did enjoy the chemistry and plot of this one, but found it to be a bit slow. I read her previous release (Chick Magnet) and really loved it, so perhaps was comparing them too much… because this was good, just on the slower side (just my opinion). I do still recommend it, and it’s a solid 4-star!

I received an advance copy from NetGalley and Montlake, and this is my honest opinion.

Included as a top pick in weekly May New Releases post, which highlights and promotes upcoming releases of the month (link attached)

Emma Barry's latest rom-com Funny Guy is an incredible read. A sketch comedy star gets the "thank you next" treatment from his musician ex. His childhood bestie offers her tiny apartment as refuge from the paparazzi, but then pesky feelings for crop her! Heart, humor, and oh, the pining! This is Emma Barry at her finest.

A fun, steamy, dual POV, friends to lovers romance set in NYC that sees Sam and Bree, two childhood best friends finally taking a chance on love when the playboy sketch comedy actor finally decides to admit his feelings for his friend who has secretly been pining after him for years.

I didn't like this one quite as much as Chick magnet - Sam was a little bit too much of a playboy rake/badboy and Bree felt a little too much of a wallflower for my tastes but they definitely had a sweet friendship and great chemistry. Good on audio narrated by Lucy Rivers and Teddy Hamilton.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review. Recommended for fans of authors like Vi Keeland or Pippa Grant.

Steam level: open door

Funny Guy by Emma Barry is an adorable rom-com. Sam is a comedian on a hit show. Bree is his best friend. Sam has been spending a lot of time on Bree's couch to get over his ex. Bree is secretly in love with Sam and instead of telling him she finds a job in a different state. This was a cute friends to lovers, relationship building read. I really enjoyed it and have really liked this author from the few things I've read by her. Looking forward to more!

Thanks to Montlake and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. Opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed Chick Magnet and was looking forward to reading this book. The set up is friends to lovers, with cool jobs - Sam is a comedian on an SNL type show, and Bree is an urban planner. He's obnoxious and reckless while she is careful and kind. Following Sam's latest public antics, he stays with Bree to avoid the paparazzi and their mutual attraction rises to the surface.

There is a growth arc for Sam moving from basic man baby to almost adult and I guess his apology is grand gesture-y enough to warrant a HEA. I had trouble with Sam because he swings from being oblivious and self-centered to loving and supportive and then right back around again. The supporting characters are just there to advance plot and it's generally heteronormative and white.

#FunnyGuy #NetGalley

mf - contemporary romance - moderate steam - white MCs - ARC - best friends to lovers - celebrity - childhood friends - forced proximity - sickbed. The MMC is a comedian (like on SNL) and the FMC is his best friend. They grew up super poor in terrible households. This book wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be, but I enjoyed a hero who is completely different than I’d ever read before. He was a walking disaster in that he struggled so much with emotions and abandonment issues that he imploded. I got a little tired of the heroine and the predictable break up, but will read more Emma Barry.

I confess I was a bit put off when I learned that Saturday Night Live was part of the inspiration for the hero, as I don't get a lot of the humor, or indeed many of the pop culture references around it. Thankfully, the writing is mostly about the characters, even where it touches 'the Industry'--more on this below.

Our main characters are two best friends who have been in love with each other for a very, very long time, but for reasons--that actually make sense--have avoided telling each other.

The story is set in New York City, and though I can't confirm from first hand knowledge, it feels well grounded; the characters walk, bike, and use the subway frequently. There's some commentary about the state of housing, from the rent and mortgage prices to gentrification, that jibes with what I've seen on social media from people who live there.

The same is true for the descriptions of the fictitious Comedy Hour, the show Sam's in; the brutal schedule, as the show works with rotating hosts every week, while also addressing up-to-the minute political and social developments; the internal politics of the show itself, and the pressures from the business side of the entertainment industry, match what I have gleaned about the internal workings of SNL through social media and media in general.

The novel is narrated, thanks to all the gods that ever were, in third person past tense, with chapters alternating almost evenly between our two main characters.

There is a lot of characterization, and very little wasteful filler; when the author describes what a character is wearing (perhaps three times in the entire novel?) it's either because it's relevant to what is happening, or because it builds characterization, and I was absolutely delighted by this.

Our hero, Sam, is quite profane. Whether out loud or in his internal monologue, swear words are frequent, and generally well applied. Bree, on the other hand, is generally more...well, safe for work, as it were.

While the blurb has the broad strokes right, Sam is never fighting to 'resuscitate' his career; he's popular and at the top of his game even in the middle of this latest crisis. The problem is that he keeps landing himself in hot water.

Sam thinks that he knows himself pretty well; he has made a career as a stand up comedian by exposing the darkest spaces of his soul and making them funny. His real problem is his certainty that, sooner or later, he's going to crash his career--indeed, his life--spectacularly and irrevocably, and, rather than trying to figure out how not to do that, basically daring the universe on the daily.

Not quite a death wish, but not exactly not one.

For her part, Bree is the sensible one, a designer working for the same urban architecture firm for the past ten years or so; she's not likely to ever made the kind of money Sam is pulling now, but she's okay with that. Her life is stable, she's financially secure (or as much as anyone can renting an apartment in a city with such inflated real estate prices), and her work satisfies her need to try to help those around her.

There are only two flies in Bree's ointment: one, if she remains at her job, she'll stagnate into irrelevance; and two, she's completely, absolutely in love with Sam, to the point that no romantic relationship she's ever had has lasted or, really, progressed beyond the superficial.

The apparent conflict is Sam's self-destructive streak, and Bree not telling him about the excellent job offer she has received--which would have her move to Michigan.

The real conflict is that both of them are still coming to terms with childhood trauma. Poverty, physical and emotional abuse, and more. Bree and Sam have saved each other throughout their lives, for over two decades now, and they are at the point where something's got to give.

There are many things Ms Barry does here that are really, really good.

For example, most of the women in the novel are good people. Some are more sarcastic than others, but by and large they are three-dimensional characters, sensible and generous, good friends. Even Sam's ex is written as a full person, who wrote the song that sets up the story not to demonize or hurt him, but basically for the same reason Sam uses so much of his own pain in his own writing: to process her own feelings.

Independently of how close Bree and Sam are, and how important their friendship has always been to both of them, they each have their own circle of friends; friends who care about them beyond the superficial, and who show that care in their own way--which also fits, because Sam and Bree move in completely different circles, and approach life from very different perspectives despite coming from essentially the same background.

Something else that's really well done: their careers matter to them; they are not just background for the sake of defining the characters. While we see a lot more of the day-to-day detail of Sam's job, because of how much of the external conflict affects his career, what we see of Bree's is relevant, and makes it clear not just that her work matters to her, but that she's good at it.

Another thing that's really well done is the really frank conversations about sex--not just consent but the kind of things people often don't talk about, and that romance genre sex tend to gloss over: I don't enjoy this, I can't relax enough for that, and so on; this part is really good.

Sadly, we also got the "but with him it's different" thing and the "no condom because we are in love" thing in the same scene, which isn't as good--although I'm giving a pass to the latter because it is meaningful for these two characters who, despite having known and loved each other for decades, still struggle with trust.

Now, given the set up and the characters, you can see the bleak moment coming from a mile off, but--and this matters--it's earned. This bleak moment has to happen, because despite all the cheap marketing out there, love alone can't cure everything that ails you. Love can and does die when not tended, and people who are in pain often can't tend to themselves, let alone to those they love.

There's a banger of a grand gesture, which works considering the characters, and then the inevitable and wonderful reality letdown (you can't expect the other party to exist on your timetable), which engenders another, even more significant gesture that is ::chef's kiss:: perfectly romantic.

One could be tempted to dismiss this story as too fluffy, too much the 'fantasy' of genre romance: there are a couple of minor villains who get their comeuppance; both our protagonists do so well in their chosen careers as to be financially secure, and so on. And while the fantasy is undeniably there, the work of the characters goes well beyond that.

These are two people who can and will make it work between them.

Funny Guy gets 8.50 out of 10

A note regarding the 'contemporary' part of contemporary romance: the story is set in a world post-COVID 'lockdowns'; at one point there's a mention that Bree had had COVID sometime in the last couple of years and recovered without issues. When she gets sick in the course of the novel, it's presented as a given that it's 'just a cold'. None of the characters even entertains the idea that it might be COVID, even as thousands of people keep dying of it every week, and thousands more become disabled, either with LongCOVID or any of the many known side effects (heart conditions, digestive issues, mental processing issues). I would have appreciated it if someone had at least mentioned taking a test.

Sam has always used humor to deal with childhood issues, which he turned into a successful career as a comedian. The only person who really understands him, who he can be real with, is his best friend Bree. Which is why he ends up crashing on her couch after his pop singer ex blows up his life with her new hit single based on him.
Bree has been in love with Sam for a long as she can remember, but he'll never return her feelings. The only way to move on is to move away. She's considering a new job in another state and is scared to tell Sam. Especially when he's finally seeing her in a new light while staying with her. But Sam never takes relationships seriously, so how can she trust that his feelings are real?
This was a fun sweet read though a bit predictable. I like how Sam uses comedy as therapy but he can be his true self around Bree. And Bree finally decides to live for herself instead of being Sam's doormat all the time forcing him to grow and change.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This one wasn't for me. She spun her wheels too long (not in reality, in text; too repetitive) and I could get over him being a jerk if he wasn't a comedian who didn't understand why people laugh when they do? That was it for me, I think. But I did like the shared history, the grand gesture, and the way they both still had habits from poverty that they carried with them. I do wish there'd been more showing than telling and maybe more of his POV since he has so much more character growth and it wasn't an equal POV swap anyway.

It did have a lot of cozy feels and maybe if this hadn't been the second SNL romance I read this year, I would rate it higher. But maybe not.

thank you to netgalley and montlake for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for my honest thoughts :)

a masterpiece if you ask me!!! sam is a mess. he is totally fine burning his comedy career and life to the ground after his ex-fiancee releases a song detailing his biggest failures. to avoid the paparazzi outside his apartment, he stays with his childhood best friend, bree in her cramped apartment. the forced proximity that ensues is stunning <3

bree has always been in love with sam. sam has always been in love with bree (but he isn’t aware of it). sam is going to ruin it, because that’s what he does best.

dear god, y’all, this book was fantastic!!! emma barry has such a talent for writing yearning in moments big and small. from the first sentence i was obsessed with this!!! i wish i could tattoo funny guy on my brain for all eternity!!!

this was the perfect follow up to chick magnet despite being its total opposite. please read if you like friends to lovers and even if you don’t because this book is everything to me!!!