"Love, Unscripted"

“Love, Unscripted”

Written by Owen Nicholls

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia of Bookworm Banter 

“Love, Unscripted” is a romantic comedy in which Nick, a person obsessed with film and pop culture, experiences an extremely difficult break-up. Nick fell in love with our second main character, Ellie, at the beginning of the Barack Obama presidency campaign in 2008. The story splits when Ellie breaks up with Nick. We have a small third person narrator that explains some details about the two, similar to the narration in “500 Days of Summer”. The other two perspectives are told by Nick: one in real time and one in a fictional film world in which Ellie and Nick are still happily together. All too soon, Nick grows and realizes that in neither world would he be truly happy without Ellie, so he makes conscious efforts to win her back.

The story is told in a typical Nora Ephron-type romance novel, which is a quite enjoyable format. The characters have faults, flaws, make quite a few modern jokes, and spend time with their families. We find out early on that Ellie experienced a tragic death involving a family member when she was very young, so Nick’s reaction to this news was a great response, and it showed a positive element to his character.

As far as the characters, unfortunately, Nick is insufferable for nearly every chapter. We understand his plight, but he comes off in a bit of an obnoxious way. “Why doesn’t she want me? We were so great. I’m so great”. He just cannot possibly fathom why they do not work as a couple, when nearly every example of love he knows from films is doomed. He does not take time to look retrospectively at his relationship, only to look forward and try to fix what he doesn’t think is broken. Ellie is only told in a third person, which I felt was a choice that could have been different. I like Ellie. She’s smart and she’s funny, but her character is heavily limited by what Nick thinks of her, like “500 Days of Summer”. We do not know how to understand her or truly like her, because everything is told secondhand to us. She’s idolized, which allows for no room to criticize her. I feel this happens all too often in romances told through the man’s perspective, so I felt disappointed by this portrayal of Nick.

Additionally, a very difficult glaring element of this novel was the pop culture references and film references. I understand that this story is about two characters with a strong love for film and television, but my God, the threshold for “too much” was stomped over numerous times. We received about 7 references to “It’s a Wonderful Life”, one of my favorite films of all time. If I’d like to hear about it that often in one piece of work, I’d rather just watch the film. Nearly every page has at least one to two references. This overabundance of nods to films and actors felt far too difficult to overcome. It absolutely impacted my liking for this book and ruined it a bit. It seemed that it made the characters quirkier but to the point of causing annoyance, not nuance.

To continue, the plot was not as well-executed as I would have liked. I felt that it took far too many chapters to kick off. Most of the novel is told in memories and flashbacks. There are many chapters that do not provide any interesting plot elements or details about the characters and feel more like filler than interesting content. The real and the imaginary perspectives are told one after the other, which can blur the lines and cause confusion. Also, I am highly confused as to why the Obama campaign is used to mark time, since neither character cares much for politics. The only time we see the characters interacting with anything Obama-related is the two parties to announce his winning term. I felt that it detracted from the story just slightly, disconnecting us. I felt if the story just used November 2008 and time-marked it without including the campaign, it would have made just the same amount of sense.

Lastly, although this was not a favorite book of mine, I did enjoy most of the elements. I wish however that Nick was a little more interesting and that Ellie was more than two dimensional in character. I do recommend this novel, because although Nick was not a favorite, there are interesting enough moments, side characters, and a few great chapters. I find this novel similar to: David Nicholls’s work, “The Two Lives of Lydia Bird”, “Maybe in Another Life”, and many other slightly fantastical romantic comedies from which the novel seems to draw inspiration.

I rate this novel at three out of five stars.

I thank Ballantine Books at Penguin Random House for an advance uncorrected proof. I also received a corrected proof, which I plan to compare for any small changes. Thank you for the opportunity.