Better Than the Movies
Lynn Painter, 2021
Romance Young adultContemporary fiction
A rom-com-obsessed teen wages a parking-spot war with her infuriating neighbor while trying to win the boy of her childhood dreams. A witty, warm YA romance that moves quickly, mixing neighborly sparring with tender longing and a movie-loving voice.
Feels like longing and tenderness. About love.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy YA romances built on banter, neighbor rivalry, and a heroine who filters life through romantic comedies. If constant movie references and rom-com logic might tire you, that same obsession is the book's engine.
Why read it
It offers a light, witty escape about longing and tenderness, with a rivalry that keeps the pages moving and a warm look at first love.
A page from the book
A mother, a sundress, a stolen base: the anatomy of a kept memory.
All the neighborhood kids played kickball in the street for hours that night, and the adults even joined us for a game. At one point, my mother was high-fiving Michael after stealing home base in her floral sundress and wedge sandals. That moment was pressed in my memories like a yellowed photograph in an antique album. Lynn Painter.Painter writes adult romantic comedies too, including Mr. Wrong Number, alongside YA hits like this one.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Better Than the Movies for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy YA romances built on banter, neighbor rivalry, and a heroine who filters life through romantic comedies. If constant movie references and rom-com logic might tire you, that same obsession is the book's engine.
- What is Better Than the Movies like?
- A witty, warm YA romance that moves quickly, mixing neighborly sparring with tender longing and a movie-loving voice. Feels like longing and tenderness. About love.
- What should I read after Better Than the Movies?
- If you liked Better Than the Movies, try Problematic Summer Romance (Ali Hazelwood), It Happened One Summer (Tessa Bailey) and The Spanish Love Deception (Elena Armas).
A taste of the feed
A therapist's phrase that turns a ruined adolescence into construction material.
You built a nice adulthood over the ruins of a shitty adolescence,” my therapist once said, and I enjoy the mental image of it. The idea of life as something I could choose, cultivate day by day, curate and nurture. Being mindful, instead of reactive.
Problematic Summer Romance · Ali Hazelwood
What it means to stop pretending and simply claim what you want.
Because when I finally take those lips in mine, it will be the furthest thing from pretending. I will not be showing you what it would be like if you were mine. I’ll show you what it is. And I sure as hell won’t be showing how good I could make you feel if you called me yours. You’ll already know that I am.
The Spanish Love Deception · Elena Armas
What if the thing you apologise for is the thing someone loves most?
I always loved everything about you, of course, but for some reason I always found your impatience especially charming. It was never because you wanted more, it was because you wanted everything.
To Sir Phillip, With Love · Julia Quinn
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