Way earlier this year, I recommended a YA romance, The Do-Over by Lynn Painter to my daughter. I thought she might enjoy it. She said ok (she has a ginormous TBR of her own) and nothing else was said. Fast forward to the new school year (middle school, omg), she comes home with a book she’s really excited about from library and says she thinks I’ll like it.

It was Better than the Movies by Lynn Painter.

I exclaimed that it was the author I had suggested back in February! She wanted me to read it too, but not until she was done. A couple days later she comes home from school and she tells me she’s mad at her book. Like, not sure she wants to finish it, mad at it. I thought about it for a second, and then I said, “Are you about 3/4 of the way through the book?”

At first she didn’t really answer just grumbled about it, and when I pressed her to answer, the answer was yes.

“Ahhh, you’re at the conflict part of the story arc, and you’re worried they won’t be together?”

*grouchily* “Yeah”

“Finish the book, you won’t stay mad for long, I promise.”

She heads upstairs with her book, and I leave her to it, going back to my own book that I was reading at the time…. I wanna say it was Spookily Yours by Jennifer Chipman? Maybe one of the Phyllida Bright mysteries by Colleen Cambridge? When all of a sudden she comes thundering down the stairs, storms into the living room and throws the book at me, screaming “READ IT! I need someone to talk to about it!” then she continues to rant about the book and how it made her feel and that’s when I tell her there’s a second book (because by this time, I had pulled it up on StoryGraph) so I knew that there was officially going to be another one.

She wanted us to get into the car immediately and drive over to 2 Dandelions in Brighton. Unfortunately for her (and me, apparently) was that it wasn’t out for another two weeks. She’s never been this invested in a series that wasn’t already finished, so she lost it. I told her to breathe, and I got her to read the tangential book, Betting On You, which I also have already read so we could talk about both. She started Betting on You while I read Better than the Movies.

Then, we waited. We got on every library wait list on libby we could for Nothing Like the Movies on both our accounts so we could get it quicker. In the mean time, I read and sent her all the bonus chapters. The one on SimonTeen, the ones on Lynn’s website. No idea if she ever read them, but last I checked, she hadn’t. Which made parts of Nothing Like the Movies click for me that they didn’t for her, but I don’t think her enjoyment of the book was any less. We also listened to Lynn Painter’s interview on the Professional Book Nerds Podcast from Libby, which sent our second book speculation through the ROOF.

And then, one of the libraries I belong to, but she doesn’t (long story) had the audiobook come available to me. I immediately checked it out (duh) and when I told her I had it, she squealed so loud. We ended up listening to the whole thing together, sharing earbuds (I’m a recent convert to wireless bluetooth earbuds) and commiserating over text that we couldn’t listen while she was at her mom’s.

I will admit, I loved listening to the book with her, because we could whip around and stare at each other, and have real time reactions as we listened. While we were still in the middle of the book, a kindle version became available in my libby account and I turned it down, removing my hold on it at every library I had it on. Ellie didn’t want me to read it, even though I could share to her kindle too from mine once I downloaded it. She also loved having someone to live react with.

It was such a fun bonding experience. Like watching a rom com together, but book instead. We finished a couple days ago, and it’s been so fun as we randomly think of something about the book to briefly discuss. She was so mad at how it ended, because she hasn’t seen enough rom coms to understand what was happening. I explained, and I think I’ll start showing her some rom coms with that type of ending so she can understand better!

Thoughts on other YA books we could listen to together? Can be romance, but not required. I will not be listening to the smutty books I read with her, ever. We may end up both reading them and discussing them later, but hard pass on listening to those scenes next to her. So. Yeah.

Anyway, this was a joyful bonding experience, and I am so glad to share love of books with her always.

Also, read these books, they are fucking fantastic.