Several months ago, there was a romance writers’ convention in my state, and a few of those writers ended up at my local Barnes and Noble for a signing. Even though I rarely like romance—more on that in a minute—I figured that one only gets to meet popular authors so often. I purchased a book from each to get signed and personalized. Because a lot of my coworkers are more enthusiastic about and better versed in romance than I am, I turned to their expertise about which book I should purchase from Lynn Painter. A coworker who has very good taste and a long history of recommending good books to me suggested Mr. Wrong Number, but as luck would have it that was the one title that didn’t make it to the store in time for the event. Instead I took the glowing recommendation from a different coworker (whose taste doesn’t line up with mine quite as well) and ended up going home with Better than the Movies.
What’s it about?
Thanks to her late beloved mother, Liz grew up on rom-coms and has been living her life as though she is in the early parts of one: dressing in expectation of an amazing meet-cute and keeping her eyes peeled for her one true love to come in and sweep her off her feet. She’s convinced that she’s found him when Michael—a boy from her childhood she had a crush on—moves back to town. She’s certain he’s the One, but in order to convince Michael that she’s no longer the weird girl he knew when they were kids she needs the help of Wes, the bad boy on the block.
What’d I think?
This is where I would normally put my ‘I don’t like romances’ disclaimer. In fact, the first few times I talked about Better than the Movies, I added that caveat. The more I thought about it, though, the less I think that applies to this one. It’s not because it’s not a romance. It absolutely is a romance. It’s because all the while serving up stale plot points and infuriating characters, Better than the Movies kept namedropping romantic comedies. I hate romances, I’d tell myself. That’s why I hate Liz and Wes. I hate romances. But… I did like Bridget Jones’ Diary. Actually, I love Love, Actually. 10 Things I Hate About You? One of my favorites, in childhood and now. (500) Days of Summer… excellent movie. Scott Pilgrim? A blast. They’re not my favorites, but I actually liked Pretty Woman and When Harry Met Sally as well.
Better than the Movies shoots itself in the foot by being aggravating while reminding me that, actually, I don’t hate romances as much as I think I do. I mean, yes. There are romance tropes and conventions that absolutely enrage me, like when Liz had the galaxy brain moment of deciding that the best way to get a childhood friend to see her as a romantic viability was to pretend there was something going on between her and a different childhood friend. I’m sorry, but do nice boys usually swoop in to steal their friends’ crushes? Like, if Michael honestly thought that Wes was into Liz and, having no interest in her himself, swooped in to romance her… that would make him a douchebag. It’s just… I find fake dating absolutely maddening. There has never been a non-stupid explanation for it.
It’s also maddening how long the two romantic leads obtusely refuse to date each other when there is literally nothing in their way. Liz maintains a strict I can’t date bad boys because of the romcoms I watched with my mom rule, which is pretty dumb because 1) bad boys are often the romantic leads of romcoms and 2) Wes is not a bad boy, and Liz realizes that pretty much immediately. Within like five minutes of hanging out with him she’s like oh wait he’s actually very sweet and polite and then proceeds to not date him for real because he was kind of a jerk when he was six. I’m sorry, but if you can’t comprehend that people can develop beyond how they were at age six, you are not mature enough to be in any sort of adult relationship.
Speaking of Liz not being mature… I knew this was a YA book, but I forgot that when the first few pages are Liz focusing exclusively on her love life and getting ready for the day by dressing to get swept off her feet. Do teenagers act like that? My brain decided that she had to be, like, late twenties/early thirties because that’s the age when stereotypically people are really serious about finding the One and settling down. When Liz then went to find a friend before class, I was legitimately thrown for a loop. I was like okay, she’s in college but then she and the friend met at their lockers and I was absolutely bamboozled. High school? WTF.
I can’t stand enemies-to-loves when the ‘enemies’ part of it is based on nothing or on a stupid misunderstanding. Liz decides that Wes is the worst person alive because he was an unruly kid and because they have a rivalry over a parking spot that is very obviously not antagonistic. If, as a writer, you’re neither willing nor capable of giving your characters a compelling and logical reason to misunderstand/dislike each other, just make them fall in love from a place of neutrality. Not everyone is at Jane Austen’s level.
Better than the Movies also tries to take classic romcom tropes like boy gives girl a makeover and she becomes hot and girl is terrible and dishonest to her friends in pursuit of romance but try to be socially conscious about them. There’s a halfhearted attempt to pretend that actually Wes loves the real her and that in the makeover he just helped her find other clothes that she likes. Sometimes tropes don’t age well, and trying to fudge the optics without radically changing the trope just makes it the more glaring; either lean into the existing trope or try to make it entirely new. Claiming you’ve updated it when you haven’t just doesn’t work.
And there are a lot of places where you have to suspect disbelief in this one. I’m not usually a reader who much cares about that. Sure, take me on an illogical wild ride. If it’s enjoyable or it makes for memorable and compelling characters, I’ll forgive any and all jumps in logic. But when all it does is make a frustrating character more frustrating, I can’t handle it. You’re telling me that none of Liz’s friends are aware of the close relationship she had with her late mother? They don’t know that Liz and her mother watched romcoms together? When they grew up together (there’s like one line about how they weren’t close friends back then but now they are, but come on)? And when watched-romcoms-with-her-mom-who-is-now-dead is Liz’s only personality trait? I would get it if Liz were quiet or private, but she’s not. She’s obsessed with her romcoms and broadcasts it to the world. Her friends know that she puts on cute dresses and lipstick because she’s hoping for a meet cute. She tried to force a neighbor to marry her when they were kids and was widely seen as a romantic weirdo even when she was younger than most people start thinking about romance. She visits her mom’s grave daily. It is absolutely incomprehensible that no one in her life knows even in passing that watching romcoms was something she did with her mom. Even if she didn’t want to get into how important it was to them, I entirely reject the idea that Liz has never said to Jocelyn even in passing ‘my mom liked this movie’ or ‘yeah, my mom showed this movie to me when I was younger’ or even ‘I used to watch romcoms with my mom.’ The only reason no one knows about this is so that when Wes intuits it from *gestures at Liz and her one personality trait* it looks like a sign that he knows her and it’s true love.
Any time someone recommends a book to me, I want to like it. When I meet an author, I really really really want to like their book. I knew that this one probably wasn’t going to be exactly to my taste, but I thought that I could will myself, if not into liking it, at least into being neutral. I mean, I have genres I generally do or don’t like but that’s not a hard and fast rule. There are lots of romances I do like, and Better than the Movies reminded me of many of those by quoting from them directly. Unfortunately, even meeting Lynn Painter in person, getting a personalization on my copy of Better than the Movies, and working an autograph line full of enthusiastic fans couldn’t save this one for me. I groaned and checked how many pages I had left way too many times to consider this anything but a misfire.
My main takeaway is that it’s an excellent example of why I think I hate the genre so much. While it’s true that there are tropes used in Better than the Movies that I intrinsically dislike, those alone aren’t responsible for how little I enjoyed this one. It’s hard to remember the last time I rolled my eyes so hard at a book or even set it aside to literally audibly groan in frustration. I wanted to send Liz in for a brainscan or at least therapy because she is woefully, embarrassingly stupid. I didn’t care about Wes and Liz getting together except that I knew that once they did the book would end, and I was desperate for that. If either one of them had a functioning brain or any smidgen of communication skills, they would have gotten together in chapter two. Instead, in classic romcom form, they managed to stay stupidly in the dark about their feelings for each other even after they spend a whole night making out. Make it make sense.
What’s the verdict?
Better than the Movies is, in fact, infinitely worse than the movies for which it is named.
What’s next?
I don’t love romance books generally, but there are a few that are designated romance that I’ve read semi-recently and liked.
Right Where I Left You by Julian Winters
Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee
The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
Fence: Striking Distance by Sarah Rees Brennan
It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Virtually Yours by Sarvenaz Tash
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spaulding
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Huang
Also if you want enemies-to-lovers done right, the only answer is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It is a fantastic, hilarious, romantic novel that probably invented the trope. There are real reasons why Darcy and Lizzie dislike each other at the start, and while there are some miscommunications involved, the story does not rest solely on them, and both characters have to make great personal strides and open themselves up to truthful communication before they can truly connect. So many writers have tried to replicate Pride and Prejudice without actually doing any of the things that make it work.
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