"Better than the Movies", Not so sure about That though!
Better than the Movies.
A romantic comedy genre book written by Lynn Painter.
*sigh*
Hear meowt,
Guys, I am not really sure how I feel about this book. Like really
honestly.
It made me wonder whether maybe rom-coms are not my cup of tea, which is
weird because I like most books that I read even if they’re not mainstream-approved.
But this is genuinely my first time reading a mainstream-approved book that didn’t
quite match up to my expectations, although I'm not quite sure what I was
expecting in the first place.
The female lead, Elizabeth Buxbaum, is a girl with many fairytale perceptions
of love, which is maybe not a bad thing, but combined with her poor judgment
skills, lack of thinking from another person’s point of view, stubborn attitude,
and some insecurities, she becomes quite the trying character.
No major issues with our male lead Wes Bennett. In fact, I feel like he
got the short end of the stick. *insert doubtful face emoticon*
The story is basically of a girl with mommy issues? That probably sounds
wrong. Let me rephrase that. She was very close with her mom, and they bonded
over the cheesy movies and series her mom watched that her toddler daughter accidentally
set eyes upon. I’m guessing that her eyes lost their innocence a wee bit too
early. Well, a weird thing for a mom-daughter duo to bond over, but hey
who am I to complain? My mom and I share the same passion for gobbling stories,
be they on the cover of butter tubs or the action-packed Harry Potter series. Aaaaaanyway, it was all sunshine and
smiles until her mother dies in a car crash. I feel like this wasn’t the only
thing that broke her though. It was most likely the remarriage of her dad after
the death of her mother, creating what was probably, a fear in
the child Liz. Basically, her father managed to unlock a fear in her – the fear
that maybe she too would end up forgetting her beloved mother. And somehow the
child Liz came to an understanding that she could keep her mother alive by
watching her mom’s favorite movies, listening to the songs in them, dressing up
like the main characters of those series and movies, and most of all, desiring
a life like theirs and last of all, expecting it.
The FL tends to romanticize random stuff, as is proved when her The
Crush transfers to her high school and she begins to see it as Fate and Destiny
and all that. She had a crush on him in her childhood and somehow associates
Michael with memories of her mom and becomes obsessed with him. She becomes
determined about dating him. Well, okay, I’m all for girls scoring their guys
cause if guys can do it, why not girls? But how can Liz actually score a date with
him? Especially when he is way too friendly with the mean girl who only Liz thinks
is mean but everyone thinks is fine?
Wes Bennett, our male lead has an entry much earlier in the story, but I’ll
introduce him here. He is Liz Buxbaum’s neighbor who annoys the crap outta her
and is the straight-up opposite of Liz’s crush Michael who is the paragon of goodness, it would seem. She approaches him with her “well thought out” plan for which
she needs his help.
And Liz’s magic solution to making Michael notice her? Fake dating!
Drumroll, please!
Not.
Fake dating is not exactly my thing if either party has zero interest in
it, and here, Liz clearly has minus 1 feelings for Bennett, so it was just plain
awkward reading those parts. I guess the reason it goes well in all those YA romance novels is
because the parties engaged do have hidden feelings for their “fake partner”,
which nulls the “fake” part. Anyway, I kinda didn’t like that trope here. Her
referring to him as a “nuisance” and “my nemesis" and “my worst enemy” and
a ten thousand other things doesn’t help much either.
The tropes in this are quite basically childhood enemies to lovers, and fake dating.
Even while reading from Liz’s biased POV, I didn’t have any issues with
Wes. And the only reason he was not considered
by Liz as potential boyfriend material (or even human, ha!) was the advice that
Liz’s mother gave her – bad boys don’t make good boyfriends because they only
possess charm and intrigue which don’t take them far in a serious relationship. (Take notes girls!) I can't exactly blame her mother because while she was right, she was wrong
when it came to her own daughter's life. Wes wasn’t a bad boy. Not at all. He
was mischievous and playful and kind. And loved Liz for years. But as a child,
he didn’t know how to tell her he liked her and ended up becoming hated by her.
And as a teenager, he can't undo it, so he just continues to play the role she assigned
him. Sad really. A total green flag that
went wasted for so many damned years just because of that advice. (Use advices in accordance to the situation please!)
After reading two chapters of Liz’s POV about Wes it took about only
about three eyebrow raises for the realization to kick in that he was hopelessly
in love with her and several lip purses to the fact that she was hopeless in
the department of perception. Maybe common sense too, as she very kindly proved
in the later chapters.
I mean, how can someone so love-obsessed miss all that??
The first time Liz tries out a dress for her prom, she sends a picture
to Wes (Wes is giving her the much-needed fashion advice she needed, at this
point). His reply?
“Buy that dress. I’m begging you”
Isn't that like the first indication of an obsessed partner?
Like I said, Liz made me go bananas most of the time.
Moving on, I don’t even wanna imagine the emotional toll that took on
Wes, so again moving forward, I’ll tell you about the first mess that Liz
created. She lies. Well, she was lying throughout the book, to others and herself,
but this particular one is the lie she told her best friend. She lies to her
bff Joss that she is hanging out with Wes, which surprises her friend cuz at
that point almost everyone knows they're sworn enemies. But Joss is happy for
her, mainly because Wes is, according to her (and many many others) a good boy. Liz is surprised
because surprise surprise to quote her thoughts, ‘Was it only me who thought
Wes Bennett was a nuisance?’ Yes grrrl, OMG yes!
But of course, she refuses to accept that there could be a world where
Wes Bennett was a good person.
*facepalm*
So coming back to Joss, Liz never bothers to tell her that Wes is part of her plans to catch Michael’s attention. Later on, Liz makes up many lies to cover her tracks.
*facepalm #2*
Joss is a sweet soul whose only mistake was being too eager to do stuff
with her bestie. Like prom dress shopping. Stuff that Liz doesn’t want to do,
because while Joss and every other teen will have their mothers accompanying them through it, taking pictures and everything, she won’t and
she isn’t ready for it. Although it is a sensitive topic that maybe Liz couldn’t
have said in a normal simple conversation, she could have revealed it to Joss
slowly, over a phone call, in a text, or anything! if she didn’t dare to do it
face to face.
Another unfortunate person who ended up suffering because of Liz’s words
and actions is Helena, her stepmother.
Helena is just like Joss, sweet, badass, and loves Liz to death. Sadly-
You know what? Liz gives too much Ginny vibes from the show Ginny and Georgia.
Back to Helena, she tries. She really does try her best to be a good mom
to Liz. It’s just that Liz won’t let her. Remember? Fear of replacement. So
yeah.
You’d think her dad would be of some help.
Yeah, no.
I have no comments about this character, by the way.
Back to the story. Before Wes and Liz manage to convince Michael that
Liz is dating material, Liz predictably falls for Wes. To her credit, this is
the first time she is honest with herself and acts by instinct. She ends up
kissing Wes in his car when they are trapped in heavy rain, on impulse.
As you can see, Liz is very, *emphasis on the very* impulsive character.
Which could be why despite the happy ending she could have given their
story then and there, she accepts Michael’s Promposal the next day at school
when she looks over towards Wes, confused about this new development and sees him with another girl instead. She chooses
Michael over Wes, in that one moment of insecurity, and let me just tell you
how satisfying it was to see everything crumble for her right after that.
First Joss figures out the bunch of lies that Liz fed her. Repulsed,
Joss and their other friends leave Liz and walk off. Wes clearly doesn’t want
her, Liz concludes. And now she no longer wants Michael but is stuck with him,
lol.
Quite the fix that our missy has landed herself in, right?
Maybe it's just me, but I can't exactly find it in me to sympathize with
her, even at this point. But I did feel secondhand embarrassment at way too
many points if that counts.
As if all that isn’t enough, when she goes to the graveyard to visit her
mom, she bumps into Helena who was agonizing about Liz to her mother in the hope
of some enlightenment on How to raise a Stubborn, Imaginative, Hostile Step Child a.k.a How do I Raise Your Child Ma’am
a.k.a A Problem Child a.k.a Elizabeth Buxbaum. However this (also) does not score
any points for Helena in Liz’s eyes. In fact, she slides down even further if
possible. Helena gets yelled at by the insecure Liz. And when she further tries
to get it across to Liz that she won’t replace Liz’s mother, Liz responds most
furiously that is exactly what she has been doing all along. A very hurt Helena
walks out of the graveyard.
When you read this be warned. If you have watched Ginny and Georgia and have felt like giving Ginny a knuckle sandwich every time she slighted Georgia, you will most definitely feel like giving Liz a knuckle sandwich or two or more even, for how much she hurts the always well-wishing Helena or deceives the faithful and loyal Joss.
Oh, and to top it off, she gets into an argument with Wes when she gets
back from the graveyard. He calls her out for living her life as if it were a movie
written by her mom and she was one of the characters, no, the main character in
it. Wes is brutally honest here, and maybe as a soft-hearted reader I might’ve
felt a bit angry at him for making Liz cry and referring to her kissing him, “out
of character” and all. And then when she starts to cry, he goes all like ‘Don’t
cry Liz!’. Sure, she totally won’t after you so frankly voiced her lifelong
worries and called her instincts (one of the few things she got right) “out of
character”.
It’s a rom-com so happy ending for sure. But the way they get there was
so not the route I would take. Frankly, I’m not the type to make the kind of mistakes
she made, so it's difficult to imagine myself in the same situation.
She advises Michael to go after the mean girl who wasn’t exactly a mean
girl as she finds out later on and maybe earns a point…?
But Wes confronts her later and she fesses up. Actually, Wes makes her list out her mistakes, feelings, and everything in between word for word. Only after all that does he say that he loves her too. Lol if he has trust issues because of her, I am not blaming him, that’s guaranteed. If he was making her remember how much of a brat she had been, I’m okay with that too.
Afterwards he announces that their love trope is Enemies to Lovers, they kiss.
In the epilogue, they're both spending time with Liz’s mother in the
graveyard, a final time in what's going to be a long time, before they leave
for UCLA together.
Aaaaand Happy Ending!
This sounds exactly like the kind of book that someone would make a web series out of, where the girl will be for sure, selfish as hell, end up deserving neither of the boys and will have all the hate of its passionate audience all by herself. It could be because I read this book right after I read The Score by Elle Kennedy that I felt this just wasn’t the Thing for me. But I feel like rom-com lovers will find this book all shades of cute and romantic. Wes Bennett is quite the popular guy on Bookstagram, I tell you!
P.S. – This book is a treat to all the Swiftie book lovers, cuz our Wes Bennett
is one!
P.S. – Liz Buxbaum and Wes Bennett’s love story reminds me of Taylor Swift’s
You Belong With Me song from the Fearless album. The only difference is the gender swap and the certain circumstances.
"If you could see that I'm the one
Who understands you
Been here all along
You belong with Me"
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