Better Than the Movies

Romance

First published: 2021
Print length: 368 pagesSimon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, 2021

Description

Liz Buxbaum has learned what love should look like from romantic comedies, films that also preserve her connection to the screenwriter mother she lost in childhood. When her longtime crush Michael returns during senior year, Liz sees a chance to stage the happily-ever-after she has imagined. She recruits Wes Bennet, her prankster next-door neighbor, to pretend he wants her, hoping jealousy will draw Michael’s attention. But the performance requires Liz to spend time with Wes, and their familiar antagonism begins to feel less predictable than her carefully scripted fantasy. This young adult romance uses a playful fake-dating scheme to explore grief, expectation, and the difference between recognizing a beloved movie formula and understanding one’s own desires.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Dialogue-driven · Direct · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Humorous · Playful · Romantic · Warm

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

Coming of ageFamilyGriefIdentityLoveMemory

About Lynn Painter

Lynn Painter writes contemporary romances for young adult and adult readers, using the machinery of romantic comedy with a clear awareness of its formulas. Her novels move through quick, conversational prose and dialogue-driven scenes, often turning banter, staged intimacy, and mistaken assumptions into engines of both pacing and character development. Painter repeatedly places people who want love to follow a recognizable script inside arrangements that make their own motives harder to read. In Better Than the Movies, a teenager steeped in romantic films recruits her antagonistic neighbor for a jealousy scheme, while grief for her screenwriter mother gives that movie-minded plotting emotional weight. The Do-Over literalizes revision through a Valentine’s Day time loop, letting repetition loosen its heroine’s attachment to a perfectly managed life. In the adult romance Mr. Wrong Number, alternating viewpoints and an anonymous text flirtation complicate an already charged shared household. Beneath the brisk comic setups, Painter returns to loss, family disruption, and old misunderstandings as pressures that shape what her characters expect from romance.

Nothing Like the Movies Apple Books

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Language: English
ISBN: 9781534467644

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