The new part-time job at Flicker Cinema is literally the only thing preventing Audrey Winters to completely lose it: in the last two years her dad fell in love with another woman and is now living happily ever after with her and their two kids, Milo left her out of the blue after a not so brilliant intimate experience and her mum is a mess...when she's having a good day!
Audrey had one passion: acting in her Bridgely-upon-Thames college's Drama club, but she quit after she and Milo broke up; now she's too busy looking after her mum and building walls around her so no one can hurt her more...since no one can enter. She pushed even her best friends away and thinks it's nothing short of a miracle the fact that they keep talking to her.
On her first day at the cinema, Audrey meets Harry Lipton and it's immediately clear the kind of guy he is: a flirt, the charmer guy next door, and the ultimate womanizer. Thankfully, she's still recovering from her heartbreak, so Harry can flirt as much as he likes, she won't budge...Won't she?
No, and that's because she is currently working on an original assignment for her Media studies course: collecting all the clichès in romantic movies, rationally analyze them in order to support her thesis that those movies set un-reachable and unrealistic expectations.
But the more she hangs out with Harry (he even convinced her to star in the zombie movie he's directing) the more Audrey understands that, by bottling up her feelings, the only person who was hurting was herself. So how about channeling all the anger and frustration and use them to change things? Starting from how the way Audrey has been blaming herself for things that were beyond her control...
👍👎My Thoughts
It's no news that romantic comedies can be...misleading, but we like them because we hope for the unfortunate female lead's happy end. And, in Audrey's opinion, that's exactly what screws us: because we have seen it in movies, we hope it'll happen in real life too...but real life is another thing.
Audrey is hurt but she can't properly focus on her emotions because of her family situation: her dad's abandoned them (and is making sure they understand they're not his priority anymore), her mother is well past the edge of a mental breakdown and is constantly asking for Audrey's help and Dougie, her brother, makes her feel she's not doing enough while safely away from home and doesn't actually do anything concrete to help her.
We have a fierce and strong female protagonist who doesn't even realize her own worth. But thanks to her Media studies project she slowly comes to realize that she actually has nothing to blame herself for and she shouldn't carry the world's weight on her shoulders. At that point, readers get to see the radical change in her character and, eventually, in her life.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book: from the title, I knew it wasn't going to be a regular romantic one but deep down I obviously hope for the protagonist to have her own happy ending, whatever that was.
'It Only Happens in the Movies' is a humorous and witty read that balances with some important life lessons about surrounding yourself with people who honestly care about you and let go of those who make you doubt your self-worth.
I also enjoyed all the 'movies talks' and opinions Audrey collects for her research and I agree 100% with Harry's suggestion of which one is the 'best kiss scene' in comedies! So let me ask you:
What's your favorite kiss scene in movies?
My vote: 10/10
Ph: goodreads.com
Ph: goodreads.com
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