Hello and happy Sunday. Today I finished a book and started the next one straight away. I feel like I hadn’t read this consistently in years and I’m excited about that. As you might have noticed, and I think I even told you, I’m actually reviewing books I read weeks or even months ago. I like that because it means I always have something to write about. That being said, I’m not exactly sure when I read Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, but I remember how I felt while doing so.

This is the kind of YA contemporary romance book that adults can enjoy without feeling like it wasn’t written for them. I don’t know why that is because it’s not like we’re reading about super mature teenagers or anything like that. I guess it is realistic and not over-the-top, like other titles can be. While reading this novel, I kept thinking that it might be one of my favorite books of the year, although it’s not a five-star read. Then, as I reflected after finishing it, and after I found out there was a sequel, I experienced what I’ve come to call the Jenny Han effect.

I don’t know if this happened to you, but it happened to me. I would read one of Jenny Han’s books and absolutely love it, which made me anticipate the sequel, and then when I read that, I’d like it but not as much as the first volume, and then another book came and I’d like it even less. And then, as I sat on the series that I’d read (this applies both to To All the Boys… and The Summer I Turned Pretty), I realized I hadn’t enjoyed the series as a whole as much. It didn’t have to do with the writing, really, or my experience as I read, but more with the aftertaste that each book left me. This is what happened with Better Than the Movies. It was cute, it was a fun read, but the moment I found out this was a part of a series, it sort of lost some of its value because it was no longer a stand alone.