I read Kelly Fiore’s first book, TASTE TEST, and really enjoyed it, but when I saw the description for her second book, it was like she’d decided to write a book just for me :). I mean, have you read the part of my bio where it says I watch too much TV? I should probably clarify that a lot of that TV is actually re-watching my large collection of movies, which consists mainly of romantic comedies. Anyway, here’s the description for the book.

Pretty and popular track star Marijke Monti is confident about almost everything – she’s got good 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 hometown hottie Tommy Lawson. Lily Spencer has spent her entire high school career preparing for the future, but she’s about to graduate and still hasn’t even had a boyfriend. The only thing she has had is a long standing crush on motocross team captain Joe Lombardi, who she is sure doesn’t know she exists.

When both Marijke and Lily end up alone at a late night showing of Titanic at the local revival theater, the girls find themselves admitting their troubles to another person for the first time. “Why can’t things be like the movies?” Marijke complains to Lily. “Why can’t you just hold up a boom box or set up a flash mob to get the guy of your dreams?” Which gives Lily 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 inspiration from their favorite flicks?

Marijke and Lily brainstorm movie-inspired ways to attract, attain, and enrapture the boys of their dreams, then they commit themselves to being secret cohorts. But, unlike the movies, life isn’t perfect – sometimes it takes more than a script and a spotlight to find your happily ever after.

And here are the five things I loved most about this book:

1. The premise – You probably already gleaned that from my intro, but it bears repeating. I mean, why hadn’t someone already written this book?

2. The movie scenes – Sure, this goes with the premise, but a novel is more than the premise–it’s also the execution. I loved seeing which movies the girls used to try and win their boys. And yep, I’d seen every one :). I bet there will be a number of girls downloading/renting/whatever some of the movies mentioned in this book to see just how romantic these scenes are.

3. The prom proposals – Is this a thing? Do boys don armor or rent semis to ask girls to prom? If so, I really missed out in high school! In any case, it made for some very fun elements in the story, although I would have liked to read Lily’s exposé rating the prom proposals …

4. Marijke’s growth – Both characters have something to learn in this story, but to me, it seemed that Marijke had the farthest to go, and I was glad to see her take the journey. I don’t want to give anything away, so I won’t go into it here, but it’s an important one.

5. The friendship – At first glance this story is about love, but the friendship between Lily and Marijke was the true heart of the story. It might sound odd that two high school senior girls don’t already have a best friend, but the reasons each of them needed a friend rang true. I enjoyed the way their friendship developed.

Have you read JUST LIKE THE MOVIES yet? If you were going to recreate a romantic scene from a movie, what scene would you choose?