It’s always fun to try something new, like listening to a new song or watching a new movie. So, I tried reading a new book recently, and it was a very interesting experience. I decided to read Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter. This book became popular through various social media and library recommendations and was even on the New York Timesbestseller list because of how insanely popular it became. I decided to see what the excitement was all about and bought the book.

     I was super excited to read the book, especially since it referenced so many of the romance movies I love, like Pretty Woman and Notting Hill, etc. However, my excitement quickly subsided. I got through the first couple of chapters and completely lost interest. One of the main reasons for this was that it held a very slow pace. It took a lot of faith in the plotline to even continue reading. As I pursued reading, it did get somewhat more relevant to the main character, Liz BuxBaum, and the plot, but it didn’t get much better.

     The book follows Liz BuxBaum and her quest to essentially end up with her old neighbor, Michael Young, who came back from Texas after many years of being away. Her quest gets complicated when she realizes her mortal enemy, Wes Bennett, who also happens to be her neighbor, is still friends with Michael. So, after fighting with Wes for a parking spot, she chooses to make a deal with Wes that if he could get Michael to date her, then he could have the spot. Wes agrees. There are many complications to her and Wes’s plan. For example, Michael grows a crush on someone else, and Liz gets thrown up on at a party (which, might I add, is so absolutely disgusting and so difficult to read about). Wes has to save her, which makes everyone think they are together, and for some weird reason, Liz and Wes go with the rumor and pretend that Wes likes her, and Liz has to fake reject him, which I found odd among many other things.

     I do think it had the potential to be a great story because of how interesting the main plot is and the whole idea the author had. Again, I liked how it referenced so many romance movies and talked so much about music, and I will admit I really enjoyed Wes’s character. His character had depth, was funny, and added a lot of fun to what is supposed to be a romcom-based story.

     Unfortunately, in the end, they gave him Liz as his love interest, which I think is completely unfair because she is completely unknowledgeable about romance despite her avid love for romcoms and is sometimes so completely mean to him and pushes him away, yet he just takes her treatment. Even when she completely looks over his existence. There are times where she somewhat acknowledges Wes and how different he was now compared to when they were kids and how much she enjoyed being around him, but then she essentially shakes her head of it because she has this consistent thought that he is terrible despite him showing the opposite, and she eventually keeps choosing to ignore him and focus on Michael.

     For example, throughout the efforts Wes and Liz make trying to get her with Michael, not only did she get thrown up on (which interrupted a conversation with Michael), but she also gets hit in the face by a literal basketball while she was talking to Michael again. She then comes up with this small revelation that she and Michael might not be destined to be together because they keep getting interrupted and how Wes is the one saving her, not Michael (which leads to another crazy and short-lasting motion she has, which is that her soulmate should be her “prince charming”). But quickly, she drops that idea, which I found excruciatingly unaware situationally of Liz. I didn’t quite understand why she would have this revelation just to drop it; I found it frustrating.

     Unfortunately, that’s not the only extremely frustrating thing Liz does. She has several fights with her stepmom (who’s been there for years) because she feels like her stepmom is the worst for wanting to go prom dress shopping with her and that being close to her stepmom would replace her mother. This also causes friction with Liz’s best friend, making Liz lie to her, argue with her, and make excuses not to shop for dresses because she didn’t want to tell her literal best friend she missed her mother because she thought that was embarrassing and that her best friend would judge her, which is so unneeded.

     A huge plot point was Liz’s mom, who used to love romcoms and loved playing piano, gardening, and wearing vintage sundresses, which Liz adds to her own personality to “feel close” to her mom ever since she died years prior, even though it’s not completely aligned with Liz’s lifestyle and character. I found that motion really intense for no reason, and I felt bad that she was so absolutely rude to her stepmom and best friend when they were trying their best.

     Another thing I found frustrating is how chronically slow the book is. I get that the author was trying to be detailed, but it was simply too much. I felt like I was going to be reading forever. It has her yearning for Michael for 90% of the book and Wes for another 10%. By the time she and Wes finally kiss, they have a huge, pointless fight shortly after, which was very disappointing. Then, not even like 15 pages later (after Michael takes her to prom as a friend), they are together after screwing around for chapters upon chapters and just playing stupid. I understand not noticing someone likes you, but when they put it out there so strongly like Wes did, to just not notice is so defeating. Then the author gives them a happy ending just for the epilogue to ruin everything just so she can write a second book, even though that original happy ending was completely sufficient and didn’t need anything else, in my opinion.

     I also found that the author’s language was so odd. It was like she was trying to imagine what teenagers would sound like, and in that poor effort, she uses slang and weird language and dialogue to make the characters more “relatable” to young adult audiences. But she also uses very theatrical language at the same time in a completely different effort to make the book seem like a classic romance movie or a Shakespearean story, and that was just confusing in general.

     With all that said, I don’t recommend reading this book, especially if you don’t want to read the second one. I definitely don’t think it deserves to be so viral and famous, and I don’t think it should be on the New York Times bestseller list either. I felt like it could’ve been so much better, but it wasn’t written the way it should have been.