Better Than The Movies by Mollie J Varcoe

mv3316 — 2024-10-03 19:22:54 UTC

The Setting: The book takes place in a suburban neighborhood in present-day Nebraska. The story's setting is in a typical American high school, Liz's home, and her next-door enemy, Wes's house. The story is very light and witty. This book is extremely relatable to daily life; expectations and hardships with family, friendships, and being a teenage girl in high school.

mv3316 — 2024-10-03 19:35:10 UTC

Characterization: Liz Buxbaum is a kind, innocent, hopeless romantic, creative, and nerdy teenage girl.

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:31:14 UTC

Summary of plot:

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:31:31 UTC

Conflict- Person vs. Person:

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:32:40 UTC

An example of Person vs. Person in this book is Liz vs. Stepmom. Liz and her stepmom often fought more and had tension than got along throughout this novel. Liz was always distant and short with her stepmom. Liz didn't want her to take the place of her mom who passed away. Liz didn't want her dad (and even HERSELF)

to forget about her mom. It caused many fights between the two because Liz never shared these feelings with her stepmom, instead expected her to know.

Conflict- Person vs. Self:

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:33:01 UTC

An example of Person vs. Self in this book is how hard Liz battles with herself; her expectations and realities. Liz wants her definition of love. A love to be like how she reads it, and how it is in the rom-coms she watches. She believes her life can be a fairy tale with a prince charming, beautiful home, and everything in between. This is hard because she is struggling to win over her childhood crush, Michael while having Wes try his best to help her, she realizes that life isn't always rom-coms and flowers. Instead, it has many ups and downs that force her to persevere through. She starts to question what she wants in her life which causes internal conflicts with herself.

Conflict- Person vs. Society:

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:33:25 UTC

Liz has always marched to the beat of her own drum. When winning over Michael became her priority, she had to change. She needed to start dressing more like the popular girls. This caused a major Person vs. Society conflict. She was pressured to ditch her Doc Martins and long dresses and needed to instead wear Converse and ripped jeans with short crop tops. She needed to straighten her curls instead of wearing them naturally. Would he like her if she didn't dress like the other girls? This caused Person vs. Society througout the book.

Theme: One of many quotes that represents the theme is, “Sometimes we get so tied up in our idea of what we think we want that we miss out on the amazingness of what we could actually have.”

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:36:36 UTC

This quote really shows the theme in the book. Gives a different way to look at it. Different than what we would expect. Throughout the story we saw Liz focus on so much of what she wanted and what she thought she needed, instead of seeing something/someone, in her case Wes, who was right in front of her.

Significants of Title: Better Than The Movies

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:46:05 UTC

The significance of the title of this book gives the message that we miss the true beauty of simple, genuine, authentic love. We often miss what's right in front of us. We saw the love story forming through each Liz and Wes interaction. We saw a love story we would have never expected. One that we see in movies. I think this shows the full story in just the little title ... Better Than The Movies.

Connections- Text to Self:

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:46:50 UTC

This book was something I could connect to as a teenage girl. And I am sure, many other teens as well. I feel Liz and I are very similar in the way we act. We both try and see the good in the world, and the best in people. Liz is obsessed with music and making playlists for every occasion. Something that I connect to is Liz's love of music. We see the messages translated through music, ones that people don't see. We both LOVE to read and be creative, whether in fashion or through artistic ways. We both love movies and prioritize our family and our values. It was such a big moment to see someone like me as a character in a book.

Connection- Text to Text:

mv3316 — 2024-10-18 15:47:09 UTC

Better Than The Movies mentions various movie references, but one that stuck out to me the most was the movie '10 Things I Hate About You.' Better Than The Movies starts every chapter with a movie reference to accompany the plot. The quote from the movie was, "But mostly, I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all." This relates to the chapter when Liz realized Wes wasn't her enemy or even her wingman to snag her childhood crush. Instead he was her best friend, and someone she wanted to love and be with forever.

This book was AMAZING !!!!! RUN (don't walk!) to the store and buy it NOW !!!!!

mv3316 — 2024-10-20 19:10:43 UTC