Nothing Like the Movies

Nothing Like the Movies is the second installment in Painter’s Better Than the Movies series. The first book in the series is also titled Better Than the Movies (2021). In this young adult, contemporary romance novel, the author introduces the series’ protagonists, Liz Buxbaum and Wes Bennett. In Better Than the Movies, Liz and Wes are still in high school and both living in Omaha, Nebraska with their families. At the novel’s start, Liz and Wes are not only next-door neighbors and classmates but also archenemies. The novel begins when the protagonists are “in the midst of an ongoing war over the parking space out in front of their homes. They each resort to all sorts of dirty tricks to keep the other from getting the spot” (“Review: Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter.” The Bookish Libra, 3 May 2021). This inciting narrative conflict ultimately compels the characters to interact with increased frequency. The novel is a “rom-com that features fake dating and the enemies-to-lovers trope”; Liz’s and Wes’s intersecting narratives are “also filled with perfectly placed references” to popular “rom-com films” (“