Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter on October 1, 2024
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Romance / Romantic Comedy, Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Emotions & Feelings, Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Friendship
Pages: 448
Format: ARC
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
For a few beautiful months, Wes had his dream girl: strong-willed girl-next-door Liz. But right as the two were about to set off to UCLA to start their freshman year together, tragedy struck. Wes was left dealing with the fallout, which ultimately meant losing Liz in the process. Flash forward months and months later and Wes and Liz find themselves in college, together. In a healthier place now, Wes knows he broke Liz’s heart when he ended things, but he is determined to make her fall back in love with him. Wes knows Liz better than anyone, and he has a foolproof plan to win her back with the rom-com worthy big gestures she loves. Only…Liz will have none of it. Wes has to scheme like a rom-com hero to figure out how to see her. Even worse, Liz has a new friend…a guy friend. Still, Wes won’t give up, adapting his clever plans and going hard to get Liz’s attention and win back her affection. But after his best efforts get him nowhere, Wes is left wondering if their relationship is really over for good.
This is the highly anticipated sequel to Better than the Movies. This one ended up being not quite what I expected. I assumed it was going to be Wes trying to get Liz back, and though it was, but it was also a lot more. The trying to win Liz back was only a small portion of the story. This book does have a sadder undertone than Painter’s other books, one reason being because we all just love Wes and Liz and want them to be together. I do think this book makes their relationship deeper and it was really beautiful.
Four stars for this sequel. I think that this book has everything you could possibly want from a romance book. Interesting story with awesome characters and enemies to lovers style.
Huge thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers publishing for the advanced reader copy of this fantastic rom-com.