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A review by lisaluvsliterature
Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
So I loved the first book, Better Than the Movies, and when I heard there was a sequel, I was so excited! The characters are now in college, so normally I’d consider this more New Adult than YA, but since it wasn’t really a sexy type of story I will keep it in the YA category since that’s what the first one was. So of course we were left with an HEA for the first book. Which means something had to have happened to get our two lovebirds, Wes and Liz broken up. While we know the basics of what it is pretty quickly into the story, the author has left the bread crumbs for all of how it played out sprinkled throughout the story, to keep you full of the angst you need for both characters.
As usual the author also has so many great side characters in the story, friends, family, teachers, coaches, etc. They help to round out the story, and lead the story in some places. At first I didn’t understand why Liz just couldn’t give him another chance very easily. Of course we don’t get the full detail of that until they have decided to kind of give it a try. Liz tries to use one of her friends as her fake boyfriend to keep Wes at arms’ length. But of course her friend is a great guy who goes with it at first, but once he gets to know Wes he likes him and kind of feels for him as well.
It was great being back with these characters and seeing how they would work things out now that they were a little older and they had changed based on those past experiences that led them to this point. The bet that Liz and Wes have so that if he wins she will give him a date, just wow, that was such an intense and sweet way for him to win. And even though Wes knows he wants Liz back, it isn’t like he’s fixed all his problems now and is ready for it to all go perfectly smoothly. I love that both of them had things to work through in order to finally get back to their HEA.
As usual the author also has so many great side characters in the story, friends, family, teachers, coaches, etc. They help to round out the story, and lead the story in some places. At first I didn’t understand why Liz just couldn’t give him another chance very easily. Of course we don’t get the full detail of that until they have decided to kind of give it a try. Liz tries to use one of her friends as her fake boyfriend to keep Wes at arms’ length. But of course her friend is a great guy who goes with it at first, but once he gets to know Wes he likes him and kind of feels for him as well.
It was great being back with these characters and seeing how they would work things out now that they were a little older and they had changed based on those past experiences that led them to this point. The bet that Liz and Wes have so that if he wins she will give him a date, just wow, that was such an intense and sweet way for him to win. And even though Wes knows he wants Liz back, it isn’t like he’s fixed all his problems now and is ready for it to all go perfectly smoothly. I love that both of them had things to work through in order to finally get back to their HEA.