Review: Love Scene, Take Two

Love Scene, Take Two by Alex Evansley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars





I was lucky enough to read this book in its original form, Between Takes, on Wattpad. I enjoyed it so much because it read kinda like an old fantasy of mine from my earliest writing days, in which my books got made into a movie with Chloe Bennet as the leading lady, and I got to date her. The difference being that Teddy Sharpe and Bennett Caldwell are more like Dylan O'Brien and Alex Evansley, but that's okay. The point is, even though this style of book is normally very much not for me, Alex's book was completely the opposite, so much up my alley and enormously lovable.



Now, she's got this new version of her book available for all of us to read, and I'll be damned if I don't get them not to stock it at the Stanford Bookstore where I'll make it yet another Staff Pick.



I did notice a few small changes in the road from BT to LS,T2. Like, for instance, the slight de-aging of both Teddy and Bennett. Teddy's now just a couple of months shy of 21 at the start of this book, so he can't just get a bourbon on the rocks when he boards the flight to Charlotte. And Bennett, she's 18 - so this one part where I remember, from the original version of the story, where Bennett muses about how her creative-writing professor criticized her a bit for writing as if Parachutes was already a movie with trailer-ready snappy dialogue. Or something like that. I'm honestly surprised my own creative-writing professors never went there with my own writing, but then again, they never read more than, oh, maybe twenty pages out of the hundreds I've created for my big old series. And they were far less critical than this one classmate who was just the biggest assbutt of them all...but I'm not affected by his nonsense at all.



I also don't remember much of Liz and Will from the original version, but I'm definitely not going to forget them as written here. Will is so much me - he's a queer guy (though gay, not quite like little bi me) surrounded by family who doesn't understand him in the slightest, and I wouldn't be surprised if my own family, were I ever to really be out to them, would out me to anyone and everyone they could just to embarrass me. The way Liz does, among other truly atrocious things that make her the most supremely unlikable character in the whole book. (And I thought Burt Bridges was the actual worst back in Between Takes.) On a lighter note, I actually have a friend named Liz whom I told about her namesake, and she and I agreed, this fictional Liz felt a little more like she got possessed by the spirit of Mihai, the worst neighbor in Bucharest (or so Romanian Duolingo would have us believe in this little running joke.)



But you know what? I'm very, very glad I went and bought myself this book, because I so badly need the lovely chemistry of #Shardwell5Ever in my life. By sheer coincidence, the week when Teddy and Bennett meet for the first time, in my real life, was marked by me trying an OKCupid date for the first time and getting totally stood up because I'm basically cursed to never be loved.



Yeah, Ted.



Mm-hmm. He's got me pegged.

But then there's Teddy and Bennett, who are almost exactly what I want in a relationship. A little insta-lovey, to be sure, and maybe a little too reliant on repetitive lines for laughs (like the "alphabet of hepatitis" bit, but then Bennett also comments on repetition of lines being literally Teddy's job, so there's that.) But the chemistry they have is Stonefield- or Melwood-grade beautiful and natural and I'm always there for that.



But then again, there's a reason why this book gets a fair few references in my own manuscripts, including a recently-written bit in Peppermint where I have Alex Snow mention two clubbers being a Shardwell couples cosplay. Not gonna lie, if I ever do break my relationship curse, get me a girl I can do this couples cosplay with. I'm pretty sure I resemble Dylan...sorry, Teddy enough to pull off that half already, lol.



As for whoever's the lucky lady who gets to be my Bennett, well, all she's gotta do is make me a real sucker for a chick in a ball cap. (Not that I'm not already.) And the part I liked the best was how the Caldwell family was such a friendly and mellow bunch - the kind of family I wish I had. Certainly the kind that would've let me drink a little even while underage (as long as I didn't cut too loose, y'know). Or the kind that would've let me be openly bi in peace - seriously, Will got the wrong branch of this family tree. He deserves to be a Caldwell, sib to Bennett and Tanner both.



I remember Alex was working a bit on a sequel, titled Outtakes at the time, but I'm sure if she writes it now, it'll have a different title. I just hope it comes, though. I'm not sure I can handle a world where this is the only Shardwell tale we get! And though I'm not sure I'll get to publish my own books through SwoonReads, if I do, I know me and mine will be in great company with Alex and hers. (Which reminds me, I need to try and revive my SwoonReads account. It's been dead for quite a while.)



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