See below for a continuation of the first part of my interview with the lovely Lynn Painter!
HC: Well, actually, one of my questions was what would you do with your day of no consequences?
Lynn Painter: Oh my gosh. Weirdly enough, I’ve done all these interviews lately and I don’t know that I’ve been asked that. I mean, I asked that on Instagram, and it’s so funny because everybody was like, I would go to Barnes and Noble and take whatever I want, or I’d rob a bookstore. Okay, realistically, if I had a DONC, if you give me too many options, I spin forever and can’t make a decision that I would waste half the day. Being excited that I had a DONC and not really knowing what to do with myself, that totally would happen to me. I would totally go to New York City though, that’s my favourite place.
HC: I mean I wish we all had a DONC, but unfortunately life has consequences. So next, I wanted to ask, did you base any of your love stories on your own love story with your husband?
Lynn Painter: No and yes. Like, no, they’re not, but I feel like all of my love interests are kind of based on my husband. My husband and I met at work when I was 19 and we worked together and he was totally that guy who would mess up my hair. Totally like Wes, sarcastic and a smart ass, but adorable and cute about it, you know? So I feel like every guy I write I’m always going for sarcastic and funny, but a good human.
HC: So, I’ve noticed a theme in your YA books, even with Mr. Wrong Number, with the parents- they kinda suck sometimes. I mean, I think it adds a lot to the story. I really liked, especially in Better Than The Movies, the added element of grief. I think it really enriched the story and was one of my favourite parts. I mean obviously, I don’t want my favourite character to be sad, but it made the story more than just two kids in high school being in love. Or even in The Do-Over, the fact that Emilie’s parents were just constantly fighting and they couldn’t really see her. It made the characters more interesting instead of being one dimensional. So I was wondering if that’s an intentional choice?
Lynn Painter: You know, it’s never intentional, but I think that what I get hung up on is how all of us, even if you have two parents who are married and your family from the outside is perfect, have stuff we’re dealing with. Whether it looks big to everybody else or it looks small, I try to include that because I feel like we all have that. Like divorce, I always get hung up on. My parents didn’t get divorced until I was older. But, just that feeling and the fact that I think for a lot of us you always have a tiny bit of grief about the family unit. Even though, you know, you’re like, oh, I’m in high school, I should be over it. You know, it’s life or whatever. But I feel like with divorce, because it’s so common, everybody acts like they’re good with it. So I kind of wanted to explore that a little bit with Emilie. The fact that her parents are fine. She doesn’t have a terrible life, she has a good life. A big part of her character is dealing with the loss of that and kind of her identity within her family now that her parents both have their own separate lives. And then with Liz, I also got hung up on the fact that sometimes I think when you lose somebody, after a certain amount of time, there’s the assumption that you’re over it. I feel like a lot of times it’s never gone, especially when you’re young and all of these monumental moments, whether it be your wedding day or your prom, or the first day of school, there’s that absence where that person used to be or should have been if they didn’t make it that far. So I wanted to explore that and then it ended up being really fun because when I first drafted it, I intended on making Helena the stereotypical, not evil stepmother, but somebody she wouldn’t get along with. And then once I started writing, I don’t know where it came from, but I thought it wouldn’t be fun to make her great to make Helena awesome. But just the fact that it’s not about Helena at all. It’s not about the person filling in. It’s about the ghost of your mother and trying to come to terms with how that all fits into your life. So, there’s never an intention with the family thing. I just feel like once you start writing a character, you start the side characters and it just kind of grows.
HC: I mean I loved it. I think with a lot of YA books, you don’t see people exploring the family aspect, you only really see the nuclear family. It’s copy and paste and I find it a bit boring, and I find that the character’s motivations are a lot more shallow. In Better Than The Movies, Liz did a lot of things that she shouldn’t have done. She messed up a lot, but you could at least see she wasn’t just being a dumb teenager. She had a lot of grief that she was dealing with. I also love that Helena didn’t replace her mom, but still could be part of her life. I liked in The Do-Over how Emilie’s parents couldn’t really see Emilie until the end, but it got resolved. I do enjoy how you don’t make it perfect. I love happily ever afters, but after a while, it’s so boring. So next, I wanted to ask what makes a perfect romance for you?
Lynn Painter: I personally think the most important thing is fun. Life is hard, there’s so much awfulness everywhere, and you need that person that you can joke with and have banter with and gets you. A romance should be a friendship, it should be the person that you want to be with all the time and when something funny happens, you wanna tell them. I think that’s the most important part. I mean, I put way too much banter in my books, but I feel like for me, that’s my favourite. It’s probably because I grew up watching romcoms all the time. But I just love the back-and-forth teasing. I don’t know, it’s happy for me, that’s my favourite part of a romance. Perfect romances where it’s like candlelight dinners and saying sweet things, that’s whatever. But, like the teasing and the messing with each other, that’s what I love.
HC: The banter is honestly one of my favourite parts of books as well. I feel like it makes it more fun. My last question is what are you reading right now?
Lynn Painter: I read The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomizio. It was so good. And then I just finished reading Something More by Jackie Khalilieh. I just loved it so much, I can’t say enough about it.
It was such a pleasure to chat with Lynn Painter. I recommend you pick one of her books ASAP, especially if you love a good romance. You can also keep an eye out for Lynn’s upcoming releases such as The Love Wager (March 2023), Betting on You (November 2023), The Objectors (2024), and the one I am most excited for, Nothing Like The Movies (2024), which is a sequel to Better Than The Movies.