A sitcom-worthy comedy, a commentary on the pressures of functioning under capitalism, and a reminder to always return to the connections that truly matter.

This book reads exactly like a television comedy, which makes sense given Cantor's long career of comedy writing in The New Yorker and for shows such as Arrested Development. Cantor's comedy style zeroes in on the humor that can be found in everyday life; the choices we make that feel entirely too large for their actual impact, the mundane decisions full of disproportionate anxiety and worry.

The humor in Like This, But Funnier is not my personal cup of tea, but works well for what it intends to do. The comedy style is unapologetically millennial core, with lots of capitalizing The Things™, self-deprecating quips, intentionally prolonged scenes of secondhand embarrassment that force a cringe response, and constant fretting over the woes of adulting. Again, very much at home in the world of humor writing and especially TV-style comedy.

Like This, But Funnier clearly intends to satirize a very specific type of hyper-self-aware, millennial professional. Someone overwhelmingly anxious about how they are perceived, constantly narrating their own privilege and flaws, and endlessly comparing themselves to others. There is a definite recognizable irony in watching Caroline be way too self-aware to ever be comfortable in her own skin, but simultaneously too narcissistically stuck in her own head to figure out how to fix it.

The design of her character intends for the reader to oscillate between rolling their eyes at her flaws (because we all know a few people who match her archetype), before feeling an uncomfortable itchiness at recognizing themselves a bit too much in her narration (because there's a chance we are the archetype). Caroline is sufficiently annoying to make the critique clear, but the narrative never pushes her far enough for that critique to land with real force.

Throughout the book, there's a sense that the story could spiral into something darker, something more destabilizing. Caroline begins down a path of dubious choices, a pattern of low-grade manipulation and lying by omission. Exploring the darkness of ambition, how easy it is for average people to become ruthless and dehumanize others in favor of climbing the social and professional ladder.

This potential for corruption is uniquely paralleled by the television show Caroline herself is writing, which follows a main character making a morally fraught mistake that leads to a darker and darker character arc. While Caroline's arc does follow in its footsteps, which makes for an interesting premise, the narrative ultimately feels too gentle with its protagonist to let the satire have any bite.

The novel stays in a relatively safe comedic register where personal embarrassment and cringe replace genuine consequences. Even the moments positioned as emotional lows resolve quickly, and the novel feels too afraid to leave the status quo. I was begging for some Moshfegh-style absurdism or surreality from our main character's moral dilemma!

Aside from much of the humor and satire falling flat, this novel has a meta layer that gives the reading experience more depth, and separates it from other similarly family-friendly comedies. It's a satire written about writing, which inherently adds a level of double-meaning to every choice Cantor makes. While Caroline sits with the ethical messiness of using people's personal struggles for comedy material, so does Cantor.

As Caroline's narration complained about TV execs and managers offering vapid critique and offering narrative changes despite having no writing experience, there was a fun uncomfortable feeling at realizing I was doing essentially the same thing as a reader. Which of course, helped me empathize for both Caroline and Cantor as I thought about the strange position writers (and artists in general) are in, having to professionalize their passions and present bits of themselves to the world for consumption and critique.

It's easy to chalk up all of my issues as the novel working-as-intended, especially considering the book's adjacency to sitcom-style humor. While I personally didn't fall in love, and I often wanted it to go a bit further, it succeeds at being a low-stakes, if predictable, slice-of-life comedy.

Overall, Like This, But Funnier successfully captures the voice and anxieties of the type of person it's satirizing, but often pulls its punches. The story recognizes the absurdity of Caroline's worldview, yet ultimately protects her from the kind of consequences that might have given the satire sharper teeth.

I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I was able to read an advance copy of this book thanks to NetGalley!

What worked for me: The yearning, the slow-burn of the will they won’t they had me kicking my feet and screaming! I loved the main characters, I loved the chemistry between them. I thought the double POV was used excellently, we got into Osian’s head just enough to really add to the slow burn of these two characters falling for each other. I love characters breaking cycles and this had enough of that to make Osian one of those characters that you want to succeed. This writing was cozy and dreamy at parts, while also managing to be a little grotesque and dark where it needed to be.

What didn’t work: I’m so sad that we got what felt like scraps of the magic system, even though magic seems to be the biggest hurdle between the two main characters being able to love each other. We get bits and pieces of the magic system during the first half of the book but we don’t really get to see Meilyr use it until almost 3/4th of the way in. It also felt like a big chunk of the drama and intrigue mentioned in the summary doesn’t happen until halfway through, so that first half is a little slow meanwhile the second part of the book seems to whizz by.

I really enjoyed this one and will absolutely be picking up a copy when it’s out in bookstores! That ending?!? Devastating! I want more!

DNFed under the straight-up-stupid rule.

I think it's reasonable to assume, going into this book, that there will be a good reason for a prince to marry an apothecary. My guess was that it would be a ritual thing, maybe a Fisher King scenario where a royal must marry the representative of the land. Maybe there would be complex religious reason, or a prophecy. Something!

Prince Osian offers to marry Meilyr to rescue Meilyr from a conviction that would mean execution. On Osian's part, he thinks marrying a commoner will endear him to the population. He says they'll marry quickly, and by the time his father hears about it, making it go away or claiming it never happened would cause too much scandal.

The set-up of Princeweaver is that Meilyr is Welsh, and Osian is a stand-in for the English. I don't know how to convey the tensions of this to USians, how to translate it, so just believe me (I'm half-Welsh) when I say that the English colonised Wales, it was really bad, and even today quite a lot of Welsh don't like the English. That sentiment was even stronger a few hundred years ago.

...So I can't imagine why someone with the political education I assume a prince has, would think him marrying a commoner would go well. The Welsh peasants he's trying to endear himself to? Would never believe that Meilyr is a happy, consenting participant in this. I can't imagine why they wouldn't believe Meilyr was being forced into this marriage, and I can't imagine why Osian wouldn't realise that.

But wait: it gets worse! Because the wedding? Is a quick, hurried affair with one legal witness. Not public. Not loud. Not even an attempt at a State Wedding. There's no announcement, no propaganda campaign, nothing. Osian just throws a feast and announces that this guy no one's ever seen before is his new husband.

Sir. You're already going to have A Time convincing the people that Meilyr wanted to marry you. But like this, why would anyone believe you married him at all? No one saw it! This is not how royal weddings work! Wtf! And why would it be hard for the king to make this go away??? He could assassinate your witness and your priest and he'd be done, there'd be no one left to say the wedding happened! You think a king can't off TWO PEOPLE???

This is all aside from the fact that Osian casually mentioned that the royal family can make legal judgements at a whim, without needing a trial. So...Osian could absolutely have declared Meilyr innocent and just gone on with his day, no need to marry him. And that either didn't occur to him, or he's an awful person who preferred to make use of Meilyr instead (and an idiot for thinking his plan would work!)

This is ridiculous. This is straight up stupid! Why would I keep reading a book where the author can't be bothered to come up with an even vaguely believable scenario/justification for this? I have no reason to believe the rest of the plot isn't going to be as stupid and hand-wavey.

There's also weird moments with the prose: mostly it's perfectly lovely, but there's repeated use of the word 'cloy' as a noun (I have searched multiple dictionaries and cannot find a noun form of this word, only as an adjective, 'cloying') including 'pleasant cloy', which seems like an oxymoron because cloying means something unpleasant??? This being one example of odd, jarring things appearing in the prose here and there.

But mostly my issue is that I find it offensive that I'm supposed to buy into the set-up of this story - because only an idiot would think this makes any kind of sense. THANKS BUT NO.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review! Rating: 3.5/5

Although this book has its flaws, I had a nice time reading it. The worldbuilding, especially the magic system was interesting, though I wish it had been explained in more detail. I found the first few chapters confusing as the author throws the reader right into the story without explaining things in enough detail. I think this may have been in an attempt to avoid info-dumping, but the balance just wasn't found.

The relationship between Meilyr and Osian was my favourite part of the book. The growth of their relationship felt so natural and I was truly rooting for them. However, the set up for the marriage-of-convenience didn't entirely make sense; Osian's reasoning was confusing and wasn't fully explored. I also didn't understand why Osian was so intent on saving Meilyr and his brother at the beginning, before he even knew him. Yes, Osian is a nice person but was helping them truly worth the political risks?

I also wish that the reveal of the sorcerer had been foreshadowed more clearly. There was one brief moment within the story when I began to suspect this character, but I was still surprised by the reveal because it felt as if it came out of nowhere. However, despite this story's plot inconsistences, I did enjoy reading it. The story just didn't quite have the depth that I was hoping for.