Owen Nicholls’ Love, Unscripted is an uplifting love story, following film projectionist Nick as he tries to understand the difference between love on the silver screen and love in real life. Perfect for fans of David Nicholls, Nick Hornby and Laura Barnett.
For film projectionist Nick, love should mirror what he sees on the big screen. And when he falls for Ellie on the eve of the 2008 presidential election, it finally does.
For four blissful years, Nick loved Ellie as much as he loved his job splicing film reels together in the local cinema. Life seemed… picture-perfect.
But now it’s 2012, Ellie has moved out and Nick’s trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
With Ellie gone and his life far from the happy ending he imagined, Nick wonders if their romance could ever again be as perfect as the night they met.
Can love really be as it is in the movies?
Title : Love, Unscripted
Author : Owen Nicholls
Format : Paperback ARC
Page Count : 384
Genre : Romantic Comedy
Publisher : Headline
Release Date : August 22, 2019
Reviewer : Micky
Rating : ★ ★
I’m going to keep this pretty brief but unfortunately LOVE, UNSCRIPTED didn’t work for me. I found the whole read a struggle and a bit of a chore.
Marketed as a romantic comedy, I found the wit to be mild at best. This is the story of the beginning and end of a relationship, what happens in-between and afterwards. It had great potential but I didn’t find either character particularly likeable. Nick was a geeky-guy, stuck in a rutt and unable to move forward, he projected all his motivation in life into the other person in his relationship and I felt the kind of pressure Ellie must have felt under. Ellie was definitely more appealing but I didn’t feel that the narrative gave the opportunity to get to know her particularly well. The element I enjoyed the most was Nick as the protagonist, even if he was a little irritating at times.
Nick and Ellie’s story is told in past and present, sometimes this works for me in a story but in this particular format, I struggled. I found the past narrative slow and the present more engaging, this approach was mostly in alternating chapters. In general, the pacing was slow for my taste.
I’m disappointed this didn’t work for me, maybe I had different expectations going in due to the rom-com marketing.
Thank you the publisher and amazon vine for the review copy.
A Take from Two Cities 