Be still my heart! This book, which is a follow-up to Better than the Movies, was just as sweet as the first, but much more emotionally impactful. A majority of the action takes place 2 years after the first book ends, with Liz in her junior year at UCLA while Wes is restarting his freshman year after a tragic event sent him home to Nebraska, leading to a devastating breakup.

I’ll give you a moment to process all of THAT!

I read this book right after finishing BTTM and was SHOOK by the shift. My take is that it may feel less shocking to those who read the first book when it came out 2 years ago since there’s been plenty of time to enjoy the original HEA. I, however, was riding high on all those lovey-dovey vibes, and then…BAAAMMM…book 2 started in a completely different place. You'll get this reference if you’re a theater nerd, but NLTM is like Act 2 of Into the Woods. In other words, what happens after Happily Ever After?

The main thing I loved about this novel was its realistic depiction of how relationships ebb and flow, especially at a young age. So many changes happen between high school and college, and I appreciated that Lynn Painter didn’t hold back when it came to those growing pains.

With those changes, however, came a few choices that seemed uncharacteristic of Liz and Wes, which was frustrating. Again, I read these books back-to-back, so this may have been more jarring to me than someone who hasn’t seen this fictional couple on the page in 2 years. Luckily, Lynn Painter did a good job filling in the backstory and letting each character speak to their choices.

If you loved the first book, then you’ll love this one! And if you haven’t started this series yet, I highly recommend it. Both books, and especially this sequel, are incredibly sweet, so heartfelt, and an overall joy!

Im really conflicted writing my review for NOTHING LIKE THE MOVIES. I had very high expectations since BETTER THAN THE MOVIES is my all time favorite YA read, but I feel like this sequel wasn’t really necessary. I was perfectly happy with how BETTER THAN THE MOVIES left off with a beautiful HEA. This one just made me sad and yearning for the way they used to be.

I appreciate what Lynn was doing because these characters are now in college and going through big life changes, but I didn’t enjoy all the conflict and how much more emo this sequel was. It was in no way a bad book because I really love Painters writing, but it just didn’t give me the happy feels I loved so much from BETTER THAN THE MOVIES.

Interesting sequel, I liked it a lot, but it was slow at parts and I was frustrated by some of the angsty parts.

thank you to netgalley and simon and schuster children's publishing for this eARC!

i really liked this book. it’s not the best thing i’ve read this year, but it’s a solid 3.75. i’m gonna start with things i didn’t love/wish had been done differently.

this book didn’t really need to exist. it almost felt like a standalone with well developed characters as opposed to a sequel. there was a kind of distance between this book and the last; i felt like i should’ve felt more about their past since i literally read it.

they also seemed so different, liz especially. that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, there just didn’t seem to be a solid explanation for it.

another thing is that this book fell into the “dual pov trap,” meaning it has dual pov not because its necessary but because it’s popular. it didn’t need to be dual pov and i think i would’ve liked it better if it were only wes’s pov.

on that note, it likely would’ve helped with my lack of understanding about wes’s motivations. i wish painter had delved a little deeper into his grief and why he was hiding things/“needed” to break up with liz. i think it would’ve helped to have seen more of his pov in those months.

the thing that bugged me the most was the conclusion. it felt like wes still had liz up on a pedestal and ignored the fact that she had changed. the top of the arc is them agreeing that they still love each other and want to get back together, but i think that wes, if not both of them, is in love with the version of liz that he knew before. if there wasn’t as large of a time gap, it wouldn’t bother me i don’t think, but it’s two years, within which one of them lost a parent and the other completely rediscovered herself in college. i think the plot could have been more effective if more work had been put into them actually getting to know each other again, as opposed to basically saying, “we’ll get to know each other later.”

i know that seems like a lot of criticism for a 3.75, but i honestly did enjoy this book! it was cute and i had a good time reading it, which is ultimately what i want in a book. i’m mostly being picky because i don’t think “better than the movies” was a book that needed a follow up.

that said, there were plenty of cute moments and moments that hit me in the feels. the side characters were done well in this also, similar to the first book. they were all very likable and had depth to them.

if you liked better than the movies and aren’t a terribly picky reader, there’s a solid chance you’ll enjoy this book. this book is definitely for those who loved wes and liz and just want more content of them. if you get annoyed at plots without a ton of substance, or ones that just aren’t necessary, i wouldn’t pick it up.

Being back in the Liz and Wes world was something I needed so badly!! Lynn is such a great writer I feel completely immersed in the story. Better than the movies is still my comfort read, but I loved this one as well. I will say the miscommunication made me so sad but I understood why. Wes and Liz grew up so much but they found a way back to each other!

After loving the first book this one was just kind of a let down. It didn’t seem like the same Wes and Liz and I was overall just bored with the story.

can i pretend this doesn’t exist??
it’s okay to let a characters story end… wes and liz need to enjoy their HEA, not this sh!tshow.

୨⎯ 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒔 ⎯୧
rating: 2.5
plot: 2
characters: 3
writing: 4
romance: 2
narration: 4

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

°•*⁀➷ the rundown
we left Better Than The Movies on such a happy note and no need for a sequel, but Painter keeps tossing out Wes and Liz content, this book felt a lot like a money grab. I mean, I ate it up so I can’t complain too much. I just feel like it was unnecessary and strayed from who they were, it felt like completely different characters which i guess is a taste of reality but that’s why I read books, to get away from that nasty reality business.

this is a lot of miscommunication, like they’re both fooling themselves thinking they’re okay and Wes just let’s all these lies and secrets pile up like they’re not important for Liz to know. the awkwardness between them, the moments Liz brushes him off and fakes a boyfriend. I just didn’t feel the spark they had in BTTM, I was really let down.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

ᯓ ᡣ𐭩 thank you NetGalley for the arc

Nothing Like the Movies was a read I was interested in because I LOVED Painter's book with Wes & Liz, Better Than the Movies. I felt it was a solid stand alone novel, so was very intrigued to see how she handled a sequel. While I thoroughly enjoyed this read, the character Liz felt very different to me than in the first book. With the passage of time and age comes changes, but Liz didn't seem to have nearly as much quirkiness that made her so loveable and vulnerable in the first book. I will be purchasing this title for our high school library, and I'm sure it will circulate well, but overall it fell short of the joy of the first book.

🍿 Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter 🍿

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5

💭 Thoughts:
This was a cute sequel to Better Than the Movies! Though it was a YA novel, it had depth and tackled heavier themes like grief (check TWs). As always, I loved Lynn Painter’s writing and all of the Taylor Swift references and movie quotes. Liz and Wes had a real relationship with hardships, and watching them navigate through them (though messy at times) was refreshing and real. I highly recommend this book and series!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing Publishing for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. I tried to post this review a few times but lost it.

I generally love Lynn Painter since happening upon Mr. Wrong Number in a library curated book box during the pandemic.

I adored Better Than Movies. Liz and Wes were great together, but I feel like this one is missing the magic and almost doesn’t seem like them.

Main thoughts-

Negatives:
- Break-up seemed forced just to have a sequel, might have been more sensical to let them be happy and then break up.
- The reason for the break-up seemed even worse, and uncharacteristic of Liz and Wes. I could see it causing a small rift, but not whatever this was
- Liz essentially changing personalities? I find it highly unlikely that the girl who lived for vintage clothing and romcoms, which in essence were a piece of her from her mom, would be completely shaken and lost because of a break-up. I don’t care who the break-up was with that wouldn’t happen.
- Liz into sports? Again, making no sense.
- Wes seemed creepy and obsessed at times. Sort of like You, which is meant to satire the romantic genre anyway, but he just at times was deeply concerning.
- Pretend boyfriends when not used as the romantic trope… that’s a pass for me.
- Most of the movie references were meh. Like not even necessarily the most memorable lines from the movie.

Positives:
- Perspective of Wes, more of this! Heck I would have taken a sequel that was entirely the first book from his perspective!
- Portrayal of grief. Lynn Painter is still fabulous at this, especially the nuances of different people handling the same loss
- The toll a mentally unstable mother and family has on the whole family. Perfect!
- Hopeful for a Sarah and Clarke spinoff
- Sarah and Clarke each individually
- Friendships, lots of really good friendship
- Wes and his romantic gestures

Overall, it wasn’t hate, but it wasn’t the same love as Better than the Movies or any of the other books by Lynn Painter.

Better Than The Movies ended with a wonderful Happily Ever After, so going into this I knew something was going to happen with Wes and Liz, but I was not ready for how heartbreaking this book ended up being...

"I can't breathe without you, but I have to..."

The things my poor Wes went through... It was incredibly sad, particularly how hard he was being on himself. He went through a pretty traumatic situation, one thing led to another, and he ended up breaking up with Liz. The way the beginning of this book almost made me cry so many times 😭 And I probably would’ve had I not been reading this in public. Lol. We get the general gist of why he broke up with her at the start of the book, but as the book goes on we learn more bits and pieces of what happened and how that led Wes to make the decisions he did *cue more internal crying from me*

He had so much on his plate, not to mention everything he was struggling with internally... it just made me love him more! How caring and selfless he was... He unfortunately didn’t think of himself in that way, and that just hurt to see. But he eventually started to get his life back together, and one thing he wanted back in his life was Liz. Despite everything he went through and the fact that he broke up with her, he never stopped loving her. And so he was determined to find a way to win her back because he knew he had a lot of making up to do.

I don’t know if I need to say this, but I LOVED this book! Going into it, I actually didn’t know if I was going to be in the right mood for it because I do have to be in a very specific mood for romances, but I didn’t need to worry because I was HOOKED! The whole thing with Wes... I was just rooting for him! One thing I loved about this book was that it was dual POV so we got to see things from both Wes and Liz’s perspectives, so that was really nice. We got to see everything Wes went through, and we got to see how Liz was thriving in college and how hurt she was when Wes broke up with her. But we also got to see the fun banter between them as Wes tried his best to not only win back her trust, but her love as well. There were some moments where their interactions were awkward and it just hurt me deep in my soul 😭 They definitely had a lot of work ahead of them to get back to what they once had in Better Than The Movies.

I loved the banter as Wes tried to win back Liz! It almost paralleled Better Than The Movies when he would tease her. It was SO cute! Their interactions definitely cracked me up (when they didn’t almost make me cry 😭)! Lynn Painter just does romance SO well! I cannot get over it! The way Wes perked up every time he spotted Liz... 😍 And while I understood Liz being hurt and her fears when it came to possibly getting back together with Wes, I am not going to lie, I was on Wes’s side the entirety of this book! At the end of the book, some of her reasonings were just... not the best. And honestly, if this had been just in Liz’s POV, I probably would’ve sided with her 100%. But since we knew firsthand what actually happened, and everything that Wes went through, it was a little frustrating to see Liz’s reservations at the end of the book. But maybe I’m being unfair. I don’t want to discount Liz’s feelings, because they were completely valid, but it was a bit frustrating. Especially because it took a certain situation at the end of the book for her to realize that maybe her feelings for Wes are something worth pursuing.

That being said, I did love this book! I have not had a book hangover in such a long time, but this one did it for me 😭 I loved how complex everything was and how much growth these characters went through. I wasn’t expecting it to be as heartbreaking as it was, but I ate it up! I was completely HOOKED! The romance was so cute and Wes was somehow even more lovable than before. I have read a lot of Lynn Painter books (not all, but I’m getting there!), and at this point, I’m starting to think she can do no wrong 😆

This was a great read. I liked it even better than the first book, which is really unusual! The characters were deeper, the story reflected their maturation from the first book, and the story arc was wonderful.

Gosh I was so excited for this book! I loved the first book. But, unfortunately this fell short for me. I just felt like it was not grabbing me like other Lynn Painter books have.

Better Than the Movies was a super fun YA rom-com find earlier this year, so after I read it I was interested to see that a book 2 is coming out this fall, and to get my hands on an advance copy via Netgalley. While it was fun to revisit these characters, as with many sequels in the rom-com world, it's just hard to re-capture the magic and the swoons. It's like when Jim and Pam finally get together in The Office - what's left for the romantic tension? In this case, it's a breakup, and now two years later Wes is trying to recapture Liz's heart after breaking it. What I loved about the first book was that the next-door neighbor enemies-to-lovers antics were cute and fun, and that Liz was just a delightfully dorky, totally relatable high school girl. The enemies-to-lovers/second-chance romance interactions in this sequel are more antagonistic and baggage-filled, and I just didn't fall in love with the characters and their relationship all over again, as I had hoped I would.

I loved Better Than the Movies and didn’t realize it needed a sequel, but Nothing Like the Movies was cute!

When I first read this book’s plot summary, I was immediately sad and almost didn’t want to read it—why did Wes and Liz break up???😭😭

But had I not read it, I wouldn’t have fallen more in love with Wes. Justice for Wes!!!!! I did hate how it took about 75% of the book to get to the juicy stuff, but I still really enjoyed it. (No real spice other than some steamy makeout sessions, fyi.)

Overall, cute but sad lil book!!

(Thank you, Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing | Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and NetGalley, for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.)

I don't know how to feel. On the one hand, I just don't think Better than the Movies needed a sequel, and if it did, I'm not sure this was the *right* sequel. BUT. I enjoyed this! I will always love Lynn Painter, so of course I was going to think this was good. And while I'm totally ok with the fact that Wes and Liz changed between high school and college, they also just feel different. And so if the story is different and the characters feel different, couldn't this have just been a different and unrelated book?

Having said that though, it sounds like I didn't like this. But I really did! It was just as fun and cute and sweet as you expect from Lynn Painter. I'm happy I read it, and I will be (attempting) to put it in the library because I think my kids who love BTTM will happily pick this up too.

I’m honestly a bit disappointed in the outcome of this book after loving Better than the Movies so much!!😭😭😢 I felt like I was not reading the same characters that existed in the previous book at all :/
Although I understood Wes’s POV, I honestly didn’t like all the pop culture references (yes, sometimes too much pop culture is WAY too much) and all the TS references made my head HURT (and I love her).
I also was just not a fan of the break up, it felt so off and forced and I was just not feeling it :/

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Ohk I wanted to love this one so much as I adored BTTM but this one just felt like it dragged on for me. Too much unnecessary kinda drama, too long & just ultimately, I'm so glad they get their HEA (again) but it just didn't feel like I needed to read this sadly. There were some swoon-worthy moments & I do love the dual perspectives, but honestly I think this just wasn't the book for me & thats ok .

“It seemed I was destined to spend the rest of my life thinking about the girl who wasn’t sure if she wanted to think about me at all.”

In this highly anticipated sequel to Better than the Movies, Wes and Liz are no longer the perfect couple. Right when they started their freshman year together at UCLA, tragedy struck, pulling them apart. Two years later, Wes returns to UCLA in a healthier place and determined to win back Liz. But, Wes left Liz heartbroken, and now she wants nothing to do with him. She even has a new guy friend. When she ends up working with the school baseball team Wes is on, Liz is forced to spend time with him—and it’s clear they still have a connection. In an effort to regain her love, Wes creates clever plans and rom-com worthy schemes. As he continues to fail, Wes can’t help but wonder if she’ll ever love him again.

As an avid romcom reader and lover of all Lynn Painter books, I was not happy when I found out Nothing Like the Movies was a second-chance romance. Better than the Movies was truly the perfect YA romcom, and no one wanted to believe that Wes and Liz had broken up after their story ended. However, Nothing Like the Movies might be Lynn Painter’s best book yet. It was more than just a cute love story like the first book. This sequel held so much emotional depth. After having his entire life turned upside down two years ago, Wes Bennet wasn’t just getting a second chance to win back Liz; he was getting a second chance at the life he always wanted on the UCLA baseball team. Liz too had changed in the years they’d been apart, and she was working towards her dreams by helping to create a documentary about the baseball team. What was so important about this new chapter in their story was that they both had grown and changed in their time apart, yet there was still an undeniable spark between them. Though it was written in dual POV, Wes felt like the main character. I loved that he was still just as in love with her as he had been over two years ago. Wes was chasing his dreams while chasing the girl of his dreams, and as the reader, all I wanted was for him to make them come true. Nothing Like the Movies was one of those books that sticks with you long after you’ve read it. To everyone who has been impatiently awaiting its release, you won’t be disappointed.

Cuteness! This book is made of 100% cuteness.

I loved BTTM, but I think I might’ve loved Nothing Like the Movies even more 🥹 Lynn Painter is one of my favorite authors, and her YA books all have the sweetest stories, quirkiest vibes, and the most lovable characters. I loved finding out what Liz & Wes have been up to, and this is easily one of my new favorite second-chance romances!

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Lynn Painter for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review!