Nothing Like the Movies – Book Review

For a few beautiful months, Wes had his dream girl: the strong-willed girl next door Liz. But right as the two were about to set off for college to start their freshman year together, tragedy struck. Wes was left dealing with the fallout, which ultimately meant losing Liz in the process.

Flash forward months later, and Wes and Liz find themselves in college, together. In a healthier place now, Wes knows he broke Liz’s heart when he ended things, but he is determined to make her fall back in love with him.

Wes knows Liz better than anyone, and he has a foolproof plan to win her back with rom-com-worthy grand gestures she loves. Only . . . Liz will have none of it! Wes has to scheme like a rom-com hero to figure out how to see her. Even worse, Liz has a new friend . . . a guy friend.

Still, Wes won’t give up, adapting his clever plans and going hard to get Liz’s attention and win back her affection. But after his best efforts get him nowhere, Wes is left wondering if their relationship is really over for good.

Nothing Like the Movies is the second book of the Better than Movies series. Here we follow Wes and Liz to college. During their freshman year in college, a tragedy strike in Wes’s life forcing Wes to return back to Omaha. However, that caused Wes and Liz to break off their relationship.

Now two years later, Wes later comes back to UCLA and tries to win Liz back. Only this time, Liz seem different–she doesn’t seem to like the things she used to like. Besides, Liz seem to be having a guy friend named Clark. Wes will do anything to win Liz back into the life.

This was a fun YA romance book you could read. We read in the POV’s of Liz and Wes and each chapter begins with a quote from a rom-com movie like Sweet Home Alabama, Bridesmaids, Harry Met Sally, Love Actually etc. We know Liz is having conflicted feelings towards Wes while Wes will do anything to win Liz’s heart back. Reading this book kind of makes you feel like you are actually watching another rom-com movie. However, this wasn’t as great as Better than Movies, which was actually really good.

The book talks about mental health and depression particularly dealing with a parent’s death and I feel author didn’t really do much representation on that, kind of talking about it in a light hearted way. Wes’s emotions and feelings was not described well. Besides, Liz in this book turned out to be unlikable character–she seems immature even though she tries to be mature and sound more like a whiny teenager not a college student. The whole book sounds so unrealistic and as I mentioned, just feel like watching a rom-com movie.

Is this book worth reading? Maybe although Better Than Movies would have been better as a standalone. Overall this is worth 3.5 stars.

You could find the list of songs for this book on https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VbNtTH3dn3bvofSp4YMzC?flow_ctx=fc65e586-cd21-4a09-b469-9d455a5aa34b:1760043181&creation_point=https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VbNtTH3dn3bvofSp4YMzC?sp_cid=224f9f40768d08b394786d35c254aa09&device=desktop#login?flow_ctx=fc65e586-cd21-4a09-b469-9d455a5aa34b:1760043179