Love, Unscripted by Owen Nicholls

Love, Unscripted by Owen Nicholls
Published : February 11, 2020

A film-obsessed romantic rewrites the script to understand why his “picture-perfect” love story crashed and burned in this wonderfully clever debut.

Ellie had the quizzical eyebrows of Broadcast News-era Holly Hunter and the neon-red hair of Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. At least, that’s what caught Nick’s attention when he met her on the night of 2008’s historic election. A cinema devotee and lover of great love stories, Nick always fancied himself the Tom Hanks of his own romantic comedy, and when sparks flew with Ellie that night, he swiftly cast her as the Meg Ryan of his story. For four blissful years, Nick loved Ellie as much as he loved his job as a film projectionist: wholly, earnestly, cinematically.

But now Ellie has moved out, convinced “the fire’s gone,” and Nick is forced to sift through his memories to figure out where it all went wrong. The fallout from Ellie’s declaration that she “doesn’t love Nick the way she used to” throws him back into recollections of their first night together. Their shared jokes, her wry smile, the “hope” that filled the night air–his memories are as rose-colored as the Hollywood love stories he idealizes.

That night was a perfect meet-cute, yes, but was their romance as destined for a “happily ever after” as he’d thought? Is he really the rom-com hero he believes he’s been? Or did this Harry let his Sally down? Peppered with references to beloved movies, Love, Unscripted explores how even a hopeless romantic can learn that in real life, love isn’t, and shouldn’t be, like what we see in the movies.

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

So, I really wanted to love this book. It sounded like the perfect little romance, something sweet and great to read, I mean hell even look at the cover. How do you NOT buy this book?! But this book just didn’t do it for me. And to be honest, there’s three timelines going here, and I’ve read plenty of stories that follow through multiple timelines but this just didn’t to it very well. It jumped around so much I couldn’t really keep everything in the right spot in my mind.

This book also felt a bit slow at times to me. So I had some trouble trudging through it and to be quite honest I didn’t really connect to either of the characters which makes reading a book really difficult for me. Although I got through it, it was just kind of meh. Nothing stood out to me and I feel bad because I really wanted to enjoy this book.

2/5 Stars