Sally Milz is a writer on the clearly-SNL-inspired show The Night Owlz, whose past heartbreaks have led to her to a series of f*ckbuddies and her emotional commitments reserved for her friends and her stepdad. For an upcoming show, she writes a sketch mocking the trend of average men dating women way out of their league, but the guest host – musician Noah Brewster – refuses to play the part she’s envisioned for him. The sketch gets greenlit anyway, with Noah in a different role, and the writing for the week commences. Noah then asks Sally’s help on a sketch he’s writing for himself; unusual for a host to do, but not unheard of. Sally agrees to help, and the frosty start to their relationship thaws over the week and even warms into something like flirtation. Unfortunately Sally starts an argument at the wrap party that kills any potential relationship they might have had, and they go their separate ways.
Cut to a few years later. It is late spring of 2020, and the world is still in lockdown, when Sally gets an unexpected email from Noah. They become penpals over the course of the summer, and the connection they felt back in New York is clearly still there. But can they make it work this time around?
I’ve enjoyed a few of Curtis Sittenfeld’s other books, and quite liked Romantic Comedy. The first part is the week leading up the live sketch show, and it is clear that Sittenfeld did a ton of research on SNL and their process for putting on a new show each week. Lots of references to real-life cast members and writers (Danny is pretty clearly Pete Davison, for example), but still plenty of fleshed out characters who feel like themselves and not just pastiches of famous people. The second half is more of a second-chance romance, which Sally & Noah learning more about one another and figuring out why things went wrong the first time around. There are some truly funny moments and some that made me cry, and it kept me invested enough that I didn’t want to put it down.