"Tanto è solo per finta" — that's basically the thesis of this whole book, and I was muttering it sarcastically to myself at 6:45 AM, parked in my driveway with the engine still running because I refused to stop listening mid-scene. Carlos texted me asking if I was okay. I was not okay. I was sitting there with my scrubs still smelling like hospital and my eyes burning from a twelve-hour shift AND from trying not to cry in my car like a fool.
Let me back up. I grabbed the Italian edition of Emily Henry's Funny Story because — look, I'm Filipina-American, not Italian, but my coworker Sofia has been on a campaign to get me listening to Italian audiobooks to "expand my horizons" since she found out I took two semesters of Italian in college. And honestly? Erica Laiolo's narration made it worth the linguistic workout.
The Setup That Shouldn't Work But Absolutely Does
Daphne gets dumped by her fiancé Peter — for his childhood friend named Petra, which, the audacity of that name similarity alone — and ends up stuck in this tiny Michigan lake town with no support system. Her only option for affordable housing? Moving in with Miles, who is Petra's ex. So you've got this insane romantic quadrilateral where everybody's exes are dating each other and the two people left behind decide to fake-date for revenge photos on social media.
I know. I KNOW. It sounds like a setup for the most predictable rom-com imaginable. And sure, you can see the destination from mile one. But Emily Henry has this thing she does where the journey matters more than the surprise, and she earns every single beat. Daphne's not just a jilted girlfriend — she's someone who's spent her whole life being "the responsible one," the people-pleaser, the woman who reshapes herself to fit whoever she's with. That particular flavor of self-erasure in relationships shows up just as painfully in Not in Love, though that one cuts with a colder, sharper edge. As the eldest of five? As someone whose mom wanted her to be a doctor and who chose nursing partly to push back but partly to still be close enough to make everyone proud? Yeah. I felt that in my bones.
When a Romance Actually Understands Loneliness
Here's what got me: this book is genuinely funny — the fake social media posts, the escalating absurdity of Daphne and Miles trying to one-up their exes — but underneath all that comedy there's this raw, honest portrait of what it feels like to realize you've been performing your entire personality for someone else's benefit. There's a scene — I think it was around hour seven or eight — where Daphne admits she doesn't even know what music she likes because she always just listened to whatever her partners liked. And Erica Laiolo reads that line so quietly, so simply, that it hit me harder than any dramatic monologue would have.
Miles is the opposite of Daphne in all the expected ways (messy apartment, loose schedule, emotionally open) but Henry doesn't make him a manic pixie dream boy. He's got his own damage. He's a children's librarian who genuinely loves his job and his community, and the way he slowly draws Daphne out of her shell feels earned rather than like a personality makeover project. The slow burn here is SLOW — they're roommates for a good chunk of the book before anything shifts — but it's the kind of slow that makes you lean into your steering wheel at red lights trying to catch every word.
Laiolo al Volante (Laiolo Behind the Wheel)
So about the narration — I'll be honest, my Italian comprehension is maybe 70% on a good day, which means I'm catching the emotional register and the character differentiation more than every single word. But Erica Laiolo does something I appreciate: she doesn't oversell the comedy. The funny moments land because she keeps a relatively straight delivery and lets the writing do the work. Her Daphne is restrained, a little tight, and you can hear the character loosening up as the story progresses. Her Miles is warmer, more relaxed. It's not a dramatic range — this is a single-narrator romance, not a full-cast production — but it serves the material well.
I can't speak to how the Teresa Bernardi translation compares to the English original since I haven't listened to that version. But the Italian felt natural to me, not stiff or overly literal the way some translations can.
The Part Where Carlos Asked Why I Was Crying
Carlos asked why I was crying in the car. I blamed allergies. It was May. He did not believe me.
The thing is, this book sneaks up on you. You think you're listening to a cute fake-dating comedy, and then suddenly Daphne is confronting the fact that she's never let herself want things just for herself, and Miles is sitting with her on a dock at night, and it's quiet, and you're in your driveway at dawn after a shift where you lost a patient and this fictional librarian is telling this fictional woman that she's allowed to take up space, and — yeah. Allergies.
Night Shift Prescription
Who should listen: If you love Emily Henry's other books — Happy Place, Beach Read, Book Lovers — this fits right in but with sharper emotional edges than some of her earlier work. It's not breaking the rom-com mold. It's just filling it with something real. Perfect for that post-shift decompression. My mom would love this (she still thinks I should've been a doctor), and honestly I might send her the link. Who should skip: If you need constant plot momentum, you might get restless — there are stretches in the middle, around hours five and six, where the fake-dating hijinks feel like they're treading water before the emotional payoff kicks in.
Thirteen hours is a solid commitment for a contemporary romance. But if you're the kind of listener who stays for character work and emotional honesty wrapped in humor? Stay parked. Let the engine idle. It's worth being late for breakfast.
