Book Review: Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter (Book 2 of Better Than the Movies)

by The Book Pup on December 31, 2025

Blurb for the book (on Goodreads):

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.

My Review

Disclaimer: If you loved this book, you might want to skip this review! This one didn't work for me like the first book did. 💔

After absolutely LOVING Better Than the Movies, I had high hopes for this sequel. Unfortunately, Nothing Like the Movies felt like a major step down, and I'm honestly kind of disappointed. 😕

My biggest frustration? It took FOREVER for Liz to get out of her "I hate Wes" phase. I'm talking like, an unreasonably long time. After everything they went through in the first book, watching Liz spiral into doubting and resenting Wes for what felt like 85% of this book was exhausting. I kept thinking "okay, NOW she'll realize she's being unfair" but nope, it just kept going. And going. And going. 😤

The story felt incredibly stretched out. Events that should have taken a chapter or two to resolve dragged on forever, and honestly, some plot points felt completely out of place. There were moments where I questioned why certain scenes even existed or what they were adding to the story. The pacing was all over the place, and not in a good way.

What really hurt was comparing this to Better Than the Movies, which was so well-written, tight, and engaging. That book had perfect pacing, believable character development, and every scene felt purposeful. This one? Not so much. It felt like Painter was trying to create conflict for conflict's sake rather than letting the story develop naturally.

The movie references that were so charming in the first book felt forced here, like they were being shoehorned in because that's "Liz's thing" rather than adding anything meaningful to the narrative.

Now, here's why this isn't a complete 1 or 2 star: the ending was actually decent. Not amazing, but decent. The resolution was happy (thank goodness, not bittersweet), and I appreciated that Liz and Wes got their moment. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, everything felt SO RUSHED at the end. Like Painter suddenly realized she had 50 pages left and needed to wrap everything up immediately. After spending the entire book dragging out the angst, the resolution happened at lightning speed and felt unearned. 😩

I wanted to love this book. I really did. I adored the first one so much, and I was rooting for Liz and Wes. But this sequel felt like it existed just to create unnecessary drama rather than tell a compelling story about a couple navigating real challenges.

If you loved Better Than the Movies (which you should read if you haven't, seriously, go read that one! 🎬), maybe skip this sequel and just imagine they lived happily ever after.

2.5/5 pawprints 🐾🐾 ( could round to 3 because the ending wasn't terrible)

You can find the book on Goodreads here!

Who I think this book is for: Die-hard fans of the first book who need closure on Liz and Wes's story and don't mind a lot of unnecessary angst to get there.

My recommendation: Read Better Than the Movies (my review here!) and maybe stop there.💕

Cheers, and happy reading!

The Book Pup

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