Books like Better Than the Movies

Lara Jean's secret love letters get mailed to every boy she has ever liked, and she makes a deal with Peter Kavinsky to fake-date. Jenny Han wrote the modern YA rom-com template, and Better Than the Movies follows in its footsteps directly. Both feature heroines who believe in romantic ideals, both use fake-dating as a setup, and both reveal that the right person was there all along.

Han's writing is warmer and softer than Painter's sharper banter, but the emotional core is identical. Lara Jean's family dynamics add depth that makes you care about more than just the romance. If Better Than the Movies felt like a favorite movie, To All the Boys felt like one first.

This is the book that proved YA rom-com could be a major genre.

Anna is shipped off to boarding school in Paris and meets Etienne St. Clair, who is smart, funny, and has a girlfriend. Stephanie Perkins wrote the gold standard for YA will-they tension.

Every almost-moment between Anna and Etienne is perfectly placed to make you hold your breath. Like Better Than the Movies, this is a romance that takes its time and rewards patience. The banter is natural, the setting is gorgeous, and the emotional resolution is deeply satisfying.

Perkins understands the same thing Painter does. The anticipation is at least half the fun. When you spend an entire book wanting two people to just admit how they feel, the moment they finally do hits different than any first-chapter attraction ever could.

Hadley misses her flight to London by four minutes and meets Oliver, a British boy, at the gate. They spend the next flight falling for each other, knowing they will probably never see each other again. Jennifer E.

Smith writes meet-cutes with the same understanding of rom-com structure that Painter brings to Better Than the Movies. The airport-to-airplane setting compresses the entire romance into a single journey, which creates urgency and intimacy. Both books believe in the magic of chance encounters and the romantic idea that life can change in a single day.

Smith's prose is breezy and confident, moving at the same pace as a transatlantic flight. If you loved Better Than the Movies for its belief that real life can feel like a romantic comedy, this book shares that optimism.

Natasha, a practical Jamaican American girl facing deportation, meets Daniel, a Korean American boy with a poet's heart, and they spend one day in New York City falling in love. Nicola Yoon structures the story as a series of chance encounters that feel both random and destined. The one-day timeline creates the same romantic urgency as Better Than the Movies' schemes and countdowns.

Both books ask whether love can be engineered or whether it happens on its own terms. Yoon adds cultural identity and immigration as thematic layers that give the romance real-world stakes. The alternating perspectives let you see both sides of every moment.

If you loved Better Than the Movies for its big feelings and its faith in love stories, Yoon delivers that same conviction with more emotional weight.

Samantha has watched the Garrett family from her bedroom window for years. When she finally meets Jase Garrett, the boy next door becomes the center of her summer. Huntley Fitzpatrick writes the boy-next-door romance with genuine warmth and just enough complications to keep it from feeling simple.

Like Better Than the Movies, this features a heroine who has built ideas about love from observation and must reconcile those ideas with messy reality. The family dynamics on both sides add texture that makes the romance feel grounded. Fitzpatrick handles the contrast between controlled, image-conscious Sam and chaotic, loving Jase the way Painter handles Liz and Wes.

Opposites who complete each other in ways they did not expect.

Tessa is a romance writer with severe writer's block who gets sent to a creative arts program for the summer. Her mentor challenges her to find a real-life love interest to inspire her writing. Elise Bryant combines the meta-romantic-comedy awareness of Better Than the Movies with a creative setting that adds its own energy.

Tessa, like Liz, is someone whose understanding of love comes partly from fiction. Both heroines must learn the difference between scripted romance and the real thing. Bryant writes with warmth and humor, and Tessa's Black identity enriches the story with specific cultural detail that makes it feel lived-in.

The summer arts program setting provides a natural playground for romantic encounters and creative growth. If you loved the self-aware rom-com elements of Better Than the Movies, this delivers the same awareness with a different protagonist and setting.

Emilie has the worst Valentine's Day of her life and somehow gets to relive it over and over until she gets it right. Lynn Painter took the Groundhog Day premise and applied it to a YA romance, and the result is every bit as charming as Better Than the Movies. The time loop lets Painter do what she does best.

Write the same two characters falling for each other in slightly different ways each iteration, with each reset revealing something new. Like Better Than the Movies, the movie-reference DNA is strong. Both books are clearly written by someone who loves the genre and wants to honor its conventions while finding something fresh within them.

If you loved Painter's voice, humor, and romantic sensibility in Better Than the Movies, The Do-Over gives you more of everything that worked.