1

Liz is in love with, basically, love. She eats, sleeps and breathes romantic movies, thanks to her late

Mom’s love of them. For the longest time, she’s been enthralled by living her life through carefully curated

playlists for every occasion (my kind of MC) and picturing her life being a rom-com. So when her old

neighbour and long-time crush, Michael, moves back to town after being away for a while, she’s besotted

again. But the issue lays with his eyes already being on someone else—and the fact that he still thinks of

her as “Little Liz.”

Enter Wes Bennett: next door neighbour and pain in Liz’s butt since, well, ever. Somehow, she manages

to enlist him in helping her land her leading man with their coveted parking space up for grabs if he helps

her succeed. But through late night talks in the back yard, stolen glances and slips in time where it feels

like Wes’s annoying habits aren’t staying all that annoying, Liz sees something else: a future she didn’t

see written in her script. Suddenly, she’s overcome by the realisation that she’s setting her life up in a way

that she thinks it’s supposed to be—pushing her friends and step-mother away, ignoring what’s right in

front of her—for an “idealized” life. But what if going off script is better than the movies?

Overall, I’m going to waste no time in saying that I have found a new favourite book—and I don’t say that

lightly. Better Than The Movies was everything I wanted it to be and so, so much more. I felt at ease

every time I picked up the book, these characters so unflinchingly real that they felt like my friends. Main

characters should always be like Liz and Wes. They had the kind of back-and-forth banter that’s so hard

to capture in a book, and Lynn wrote it perfectly. I could honestly sit here all day and list everything I loved

about this book (I mean, I did page-tab rather a lot of favourite moments.) All I know is that this was a

romantically idyllic novel that had me wonderstruck from the get-go—it’s flawless. I cannot wait to read

more from Lynn. The easiest five stars! (Well, cats, which is another reason I loved this book: there was

the sweetest kitty!)