For much of the year, 36-year-old Sally Milz doesn't have time to think about romance --- except how to make it funny. As a writer for “The Night Owls,” a live late-night sketch comedy show (à la “Saturday Night Live”), she maintains a grueling weekly schedule of pitch meetings, all-night writing sessions, rehearsals, performances and after-parties. After 10 years on the job (and one mortifying early crush on a fellow writer that was spectacularly unrequited), Sally has found her rhythm --- and it doesn't include a significant other.

"Sittenfeld is certainly adept at bringing us along with her characters through the use of swift pacing and breezy dialogue. Whether or not you buy into the Danny Horst Rule, you will be eager to see if Sally and Noah find their happily ever after."

That is, until one week in 2018 when Noah Brewster, a phenomenally successful singer-songwriter, shows up to host “The Night Owls” and be the musical guest. Sally feels an immediate spark with Noah, whom she helps with a sketch he successfully pitches to the producers, but she can't allow herself to imagine that the attraction might be mutual. After all, for this week's show, Sally pitched a sketch called the Danny Horst Rule, as she watched yet another one of her average-looking male colleagues start a relationship with a much more physically attractive woman. The point, of course, is that the reverse would never be true --- and, consequently, any flirtation with the devastatingly handsome Noah could never lead anywhere. Right?

Noah's show is a huge hit, but Sally sabotages everything with a cutting remark at the after-party, and that's the end of the story. Or at least it is, until the summer of 2020 when pandemic isolation leads Noah to reach out over email.

Curtis Sittenfeld's protagonist has made a name for herself writing caustically funny pieces that skewer gender norms and expectations. In that same spirit, the book seems intended to subvert some of the rules governing contemporary romance novels and films. On one level, it does just that --- though Sally's ongoing insecurities about her own relative attractiveness come close to undermining the point that Sittenfeld is trying to make.

Where ROMANTIC COMEDY really shines is in the second part of its title and the first half of the book --- the lively, often very funny sections showcasing the hard work and creativity of Sally and her colleagues, and the breakneck pace it takes to pull together a live weekly show like this. Unmoored from this environment, COVID-era Sally can seem a bit flat by comparison, though the novel is still filled with touching subplots, like Sally's relationship with her aging stepdad and her evolving friendship with her two best friends, both cast members on the show.

If ROMANTIC COMEDY doesn't quite hit all its marks as either a satire of contemporary romance fiction or an unapologetic celebration of the genre, Sittenfeld is certainly adept at bringing us along with her characters through the use of swift pacing and breezy dialogue. Whether or not you buy into the Danny Horst Rule, you will be eager to see if Sally and Noah find their happily ever after.