Romantic Comedy

Sally Milz is the narrator and central protagonist of the novel—a relatable romantic heroine who finds love despite herself. Sally is a comedy writer in her late 30s who has become so comfortable in her life that she’s become stagnant. She doesn’t really date, and she has no ambitions to move up the ladder of writers at her live televised sketch-comedy show, The Night Owls. Sally has dreams of becoming a screenplay writer, focusing her stories on strong, more modern female leads. She is exasperated by her male-dominated work environment, in which a woman must become one of the guys in order to fit in. Sally’s gender puts her at a disadvantage in this environment, but she has learned how to desexualize herself in the workplace, particularly after she was rejected romantically by the head writer, Elliot, with whom she was in love. Sally has internalized insecurities about her body, her looks, and her womanhood, a product of systemic cultural misogyny. These insecurities have made Sally put up a self-protective wall between her and the world, in which romance is inaccessible because it’s unnecessary and cheesy. Sally believes herself to be an average-looking woman whose only attractive qualities are her wit and intelligence. She doesn’t give herself a chance to form connections that might demonstrate she’s worthy of love and desire.

Sally’s job keeps her life on a tense schedule of all-night writing deadlines and quick turnarounds. It also introduces her to a variety of celebrities. She meets Noah Brewster, a handsome, famous singer-actor when he arrives at TNO for his hosting and musical guest duties. Sally initially dismisses him as yet another good-looking celebrity, but they quickly hit it off. Noah finds her sketches intelligent and funny, and he seeks her advice for a sketch of his own. They discuss their jobs and get to know one another better. Sally watches his musical rehearsal and is sure that he’s singing right to her. Sally is unsettled and refuses to believe that a handsome celebrity would be interested in an average woman like her. Self-protectively, she dismisses Noah as superficial and insults his dating history to drive him away. Her insecurity and self-consciousness are exacerbated by the intensity of the TNO set, and its proximity to celebrity makes it difficult for her to connect with Noah without her guard up. When Sally and Noah reconnect, it is through writing emails, which makes Sally feel safe because she can edit and revise her voice as she goes along. She is surprised by how intimate and vulnerable she and Noah both are in their exchanges. A major moment in Sally’s character development is when she goes to Los Angeles to visit Noah. She challenges herself to be with Noah—though she isn’t convinced that he’s interested in her—because she hopes that they’ll have sex. Throughout the early stages of her relationship with Noah, Sally pushes herself to find a new version of herself that is not embittered by heartbreak or the constant barrage of misogyny in her workplace, a version that is open to being loved.

Another major moment of growth occurs when Sally quits her job as writer for TNO after 11 years. In a leap of faith, she decides to let go of what has long been familiar for her to pursue her dream of being a screenwriter. Sally doesn’t typically like risk or uncertainty, but her relationship with Noah lets her reexperience what it’s like to truly want something—or, in Noah’s case, someone—which allows her to recognize desires in other areas of her life as well. She ultimately embraces life’s possibilities as beautiful and fruitful, rather than frightening and tricky. Sally grows from a woman determined to never be vulnerable with a man and never take professional risks into a woman who chooses to make herself available emotionally and physically for new opportunities and true love. Sally becomes the romantic heroine of her own romantic comedy.