Book Review on: Nothing Like The Movie

By Joshika Kashyap, Bcom (Hons), 1st Year

Edited and Designed by Aradhya Yadav, BA Hons English, 1st Year

Nothing Like The Movie "I am just Wes fucking Bennett, Lib, the guy who can't remember a single day in his life when he didn't love you." Spoiler alert! This book is the sequel of the book 'Better than the movies' by Lynn Painter. One of my absolute favorite books. This book tells the story how Wes had to break up with Liz after the death of his father, which fell into Wes's life out of nowhere, when he finally thought he had everything in his life - his Liz, his dream career, his dream university, everything started falling apart one after another. Wes had to leave his amazing life behind in LA and had to work multiple jobs to get paid little just to keep his family going and also funded his sister's education because his father's death had shaken his mother to the core, and she was not in a state to handle the grief. What makes the story particularly compelling is the way the characters deal with grief and the consequences of decisions made out of love. Wes did what he thought was best for Liz and ended things with her with a twisted lie. This breaks her heart and she slowly turned into a different person, someone who was no longer full of love and who didn't believe in love like Liz once did. She continued living her life in UCLA, while Wes was stuck in a miserable place. Until finally, Wes decides to get his life back and gives everything he has in order to get into his dream university and also win Liz back. It seems to Wes that things were finally falling into place. He gets into UCLA , gets back onto the baseball team, his mother comes back to her senses. Before he knows it, he is back on campus, running and training as hard as he can while listening to the playlist Liz made him when they were together. Everything comes to a stop when both of their eyes met and it seemed like nothing matters anymore , until Liz introduces her new boyfriend to him. It breaks Wes's heart when he realizes that someone else already has her. Slowly, we can see the banter blooming back into their lives, Wes is determined to win her back, but will she let him back?? We can see how much efforts Wes puts in order to win her back, from trying to get her talk to him, to again tease her like he used to, he used to analyze every little detail of her, he used to cherish the very little time they got to spend together while constantly getting lost in her eyes and memorizing the number of freckles on her face for the thousandth time he wanted to bring the love loving Liz back to him. We can see how he wanted to make a grand gesture for her like the movies as he knew she would love it. We also see how Liz tries to be unaffected by him but she knows deep down her heart beats for him only. This book makes you believe in love again, it tells you to fight for your love, it shows how no matter what ,when two stars are meant to be together the entire universe will work to bring them back. Love is so much deeper than anyone could ever comprehend, it is the alignment of souls, it is the trust that beholds and it is the never ending story of those who gets to live it through. Wes and Liz's story is like that . It makes you fall in love with their story and keeps you on the edge throughout. This book dives into sorrow, grief, loss while also putting a ray of hope. It is a fine mix of everything. It will make you tear up , makes you feel the grief, makes you feel the hope, makes you feel the happiness in between. It will also make you feel hopelessly romantic, will make you giggle, kick your feet and also make you blush and end up making you cry of happiness. By the end of the book, you will truly realize that life is nothing like the movies, in fact it is Better than the movies.