Pretty and popular track star Marijke Monti is confident about almost everything – she’s got great friends, a great family, and she’s on her way to the State Track Championship. In fact, the only thing Marijke isn’t confident about is her relationship with Tommy Lawson.
Lily Spencer has spent her entire high school career preparing for the future – she’s participated in every extracurricular activity and volunteer committee she could. But, at home, she watches her mother go on date after date with dud-dudes, still searching for “the one.” Lily realizes that she’s about to graduate and still hasn’t even had a boyfriend.
While they live on each other’s periphery at school, Lily and Marijke never seemed to have much in common; but, after a coincidental meeting at the movie theater, Lily gets an idea – why can’t life be like a movie? Why can’t they set up their perfect romantic situations, just in time for their senior prom, using movie techniques?
Once the girls come up with the perfect plans, they commit themselves to being secret cohorts and, just like in the movies, drama ensues.
I have reached a point in the year where it hurts to read and review novels. It is May 12th. 12:15 AM. I am in pain. Why?
Mostly because every review I write sounds like the same load of garbage. This review will mark the number of Read of the Weeks I need to fill up a year. That’s right. It’s only May. And I’ve written (roughly) fifty-two reviews for 2014. I am an animal.
Am I done/tired of/frustrated with reading and reviewing? In your dreams.
But. But, my point is that if this review sounds just like all the others, I am only one girl reading far too much to produce so many individual thoughts. Reasonable? I’m not sure. I’ve written fifty-two reviews and it’s quite possible that my head’s not on straight. Why am I overworking myself? Well, as of August I’ll be working for the Mouse while being an online full-time student, and if I don’t already overwork myself I figured I had to draw the line at some point, so here I am, tittering away.
So bramances. My ultimate favorite qualities in YAs. I think we should petition for them to be a thing. Better yet, more than a thing. More like, a genre. You heard it first here, folks. Bramances. They’re real. They’re happening. We’ll get here. Marijke and Lily’s unlikely friendship blossomed so beautifully, and everything about this sentence is not right but I will pretend it is. These girls were both so relatable and the idea of them having to get to know and love themselves before feeling comfortable in a relationship was so admirable. Young love knows no bounds and because of this, I like to think, some of us rush headfirst into things before remembering that the most important person to love before anyone else is yourself… in an unselfish way.
UPDATE: I’m currently editing this piece and please take notice that it was written sometime after midnight. I will keep things as they were originally written only to amuse my oh-so lovely audience. The things I do for y’all.
Tommy and Joe were both boys. And when I say that I’m not necessarily inferring that men are horrible and mostly dodo-ish species, but I kind of am and these two were no different than the kind of band boys you met in high school with their long hair and brooding eyes and pretty lies. Am I reliving some sort of repressed trauma? Most probably. I leave that up to you to decide. The point is that they kind of sucked, and while everything was justified in the end, I’ve seen too many romantic comedies to be okay with either of them. They weren’t The One or anything close. I’m thinking more along the lines of “You’ll do.”
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Why does that sound so familiar? Because I’ve been watching Girl Code for much too long and, obviously, so have you.
Just Like the Movies is a book about real girls, real boys, and real-life romantic scenarios that aren’t always played out the way they should be. We all want our Happily Ever Afters to be film-esque, but in reality, those sort of things just don’t happen the way people expect them to.
Romance, flash mobs, and Lloyd Dobler will all have you awaiting Flore’s next work.
Rating: 8/10
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