Right off the bat, I want to start this review by mentioning that I’ve definitely heard a lot of really great things about Lynn Painter’s book, Better Than The Movies, ever since its release back in May of 2021. After having finally read Better Than The Movies, I have to say that while I’ve always had very mixed feelings about young adult romance books, I really enjoyed this book for the most part.
Liz Buxbaum was a very well-written, interesting, and likable protagonist for the most part. Despite my being a guy, I actually found myself really being able to relate to Liz’s hopeless romantic nature and her love of romantic comedies quite a bit, because I’ve considered myself a hopeless romantic ever since I watched the romantic comedy Pretty Woman for the first time when I was either five or six years old.
I felt like Painter did a fantastic job of establishing for the reader what Liz’s relationship with her biological mother was like, even though her mother had passed away before events that take place in the book, and it’s very clear that her relationship with her mother had a significant influence on her when she was alive; especially when it came to mentioning the fact that her mother had been an aspiring screenwriter. Plus, it was pretty obvious that her mother had played a big role in instilling her with a hopeless romantic nature when she was still alive. I also thought that Painter opening every chapter with a quote from numerous famous romantic comedies was very fitting, since it was mentioned at one point in the book that Liz and her mother had owned a big box of romantic comedies, but Helena had sold them, thinking that Liz didn’t watch them anymore.
