Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter Review: A Romcom-Loving Teen's Charming Coming-of-Age

Better Than the Movies centers on Liz Buxbaum, a senior in high school and a devoted fan of romantic comedies — a passion she inherited from her late mother, a screenwriter who died when Liz was a child. When Michael, Liz's long-term crush, moves back to her hometown during senior year, she resolves to engineer the kind of grand, movie-perfect romance she has always envisioned. To do it, she recruits Wes Bennett — her next-door neighbor, Michael's new friend, and the boy who has irritated her with pranks since childhood — to feign romantic interest in her as a way of drawing Michael's attention. As Liz and Wes spend more time together, miscommunications and mounting secrets complicate her scheme, and her feelings for Wes begin to change in ways her romcom blueprint never anticipated. The novel was originally published by Simon & Schuster on May 4, 2021, with a paperback reprint following in July 2022.

Few young adult novels of the early 2020s illustrate the power of social media word-of-mouth as clearly as this one. According to Wikipedia, the book's surge in popularity coincided directly with the release of its paperback edition, and Painter has credited creator Haley Pham, who called it "the best romance book [she had] ever read," with igniting that momentum on BookTok. As of March 2026, the novel has spent 40 months on the monthly New York Times Young Adult Paperback Best Seller List and held the number one position for two of those months. A sequel, Nothing Like the Movies, arrived in 2024 — following Wes and Liz into college — and was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. In May 2026, Netflix announced a film adaptation in development, with director Julia Hart attached and co-writing alongside her creative partner Jordan Horowitz. For a debut young adult title, that trajectory is remarkable by any measure.

critics described the novel as a "charming, fluffy concoction [that] manages to pack into one goofy plot every conceivable trope" — and that density is, for its target audience, a feature rather than a flaw. The book incorporates classic romcom devices including fake dating, an enemies-to-lovers dynamic, and a makeover sequence, deploying them with clear self-awareness. Mary Kamela, writing for School critical coverage, noted that the banter between Liz and Wes drives much of the novel's enjoyment, alongside lovable characters and a sustained "will-they-won't-they" tension. Common Sense Media's review singles out Liz's grief over her mother's absence during senior year as movingly and realistically portrayed — a thread that gives the novel emotional weight beyond its comic scaffolding. Wes, in Common Sense Media's assessment, is characterized as kind, compassionate, and open-minded. The book also includes a soundtrack list at its close, tying the story's music references together as a final nod to its pop-culture sensibility.

No honest account of the novel ignores its constraints. School Critics observed plainly that readers already familiar with romantic comedy conventions will be able to predict the story's trajectory — the plot architecture is transparent to genre-literate readers. Kirkus Reviews, while positive in overall tone, acknowledged the novel's reliance on virtually every available romcom trope, which some readers may experience as formulaic rather than affectionately familiar. Common Sense Media also flags that the film references woven throughout the narrative skew toward titles aimed at older audiences than the book's own readership, meaning younger teens may miss a meaningful portion of the cultural texture Painter builds into Liz's voice. These are not crippling weaknesses, but they are real ones for readers who arrive seeking subversion rather than sincere celebration of the form.

Ellis Cochrane, reviewing for The Independent and awarding the novel four and a half stars, argued that Better Than the Movies demonstrates that young adult literature need not be confined to young adult readers. Common Sense Media places the appropriate reading age at 14 and up, noting the presence of kissing, some sexual innuendo, mild swearing, and a teenage keg party (at which the main characters consume little or nothing). The novel is designed for readers who love romantic comedies — in any medium — and who want a high school romance that takes its genre seriously enough to both honor and interrogate it. For that audience, the combination of comic timing, slow-burn tension, and a genuinely affecting grief subplot makes it a strong and well-regarded entry point into contemporary young adult romance.