Latest / Main Chapter / 'Trust Fall' by Lynn Painter Book Review | Diving Into The YA Fall Romance

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'Trust Fall' by Lynn Painter Book Review | Diving Into The YA Fall Romance · Main Chapter

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, my book butterflies, and welcome to this week's episode of the Main Chapter Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: My name's Brianna, and if you haven't already, please be sure to like and subscribe so we can continue growing and spreading our love of books with the entire world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm doing something new this week.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: For the first time ever, I am doing a book review.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little nervous.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've never done like a verbal video book review before.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But Lynn Painter's new book, Trustfall, just came out and I really, really wanted to review it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lynn Painter is one of my favorite authors of all time.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe me, this is Pumpkin, and he is, for those who are listening and can't see, my Dachshund book basket, and all my Lynn Painter books sit here.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is a very coveted place in my bookshelf book collection, and all my Lynn Painter books come here.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know Ball when it comes to Lynn Painter.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Trustfall is going to go right here in this spot after I am done with this review.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I read everything she comes out with, whether it is YA or adult romance.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love Lyn Painter.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have the Barnes and Noble exclusive edition right here with the exclusive cover.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love the colors on this one and the bonus chapter scene in the end.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I tracked this book down.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had to go across two Barnes Nobles to find it, drove 45 minutes through the canyon in LA in rush hours.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you know how serious I was about getting my hands on this book and reviewing it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to try to keep this review relatively light on spoilers.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I will talk about my favorite quotes and some of my favorite scenes, but I don't want to give too many things away.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I will disclaim if I'm about to read a quote or talk about a specific scene if you want to skip through it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: But don't worry, I'm not gonna ruin the book for you.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And before I get into the specifics of this book, I really just want to talk about why I love Lynn Painter.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have been reading romance since high school.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was reading romance at a time when my mom was double checking that what I was reading was appropriate, it was good, it wasn't too many sex scenes, too many curse words.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like Lynn Painter is the type of author I wish I had into eighth and ninth grade because she really explores teenage romance, but makes it age appropriate.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And coming at it also as a 25-year-old, I will say that it has to be really good writing for me to read YA.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like it takes a lot for me to be invested in these 16, 17, 18-year-olds' lives.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: But Lynn Painter does it every time.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think she's one of the best YA romance writers there is.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I actually a lot of times enjoy her YA romance more than her adult romance.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just also she really encapsulates like what the teenage girl fantasy is.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And coming from a personal connection, I'm not someone who had like a lot of romantic experiences as a teenager.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And these were kind of like the stories that I dreamed about at like 16, 17 years old.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's also kind of nostalgic for me to now go back and see these types of things that were so yearned for and so loved for in my teenage years, and what I now really enjoy reading about in my 20s.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, for those who have not read the back of the book or need a little bit of a refresher, Trustfall follows our FMC Julia, who lives in a small town in Nebraska with her twin brother and parents.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their family owns the town's grocery store.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: They live that traditional Midwestern lifestyle, and they have a regular customer who has become this family friend named Lou.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Lou is elderly, he unfortunately passes away, and they are completely surprised to learn that Lou was actually rich.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in his will, he left them his fortune as well as a house in New York City, and not just anywhere in New York City, a very affluent neighborhood in the Upper West Side.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a statement in the will that they get to keep the house, they get to keep the fortune if they move to New York for six months, and that both Julia and her twin brother Liam lit or enroll in a school called Gardenwood Academy.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we go to New York, that is where we meet our MMC Damien.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And to Damien, Lou was actually Uncle Remington, and he was very close with Uncle Remington, closer than he was with his parents.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he's very blindsided when he hears that he passes away, and his family is also blindsided when they learn that they are left out of the will and aren't getting the house that Lou slash Uncle Remington always said that would be Damien's.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they immediately are completely sus of Julia and her family.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: They think that they trapped Lou, that he has dementia and he was vulnerable and didn't mean what he wrote in his will.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So immediately, Damien's parents are like, we are gonna contest this will, we are going to get the property back.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And meanwhile, Damien actually runs into Julia at school.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: They go to the same one, and she needs a math tutor.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Her scores are not up to Gardenwood Academy standards, and he decides to take on tutoring her so he could kind of get to know her, get to know her family, and see if he can reveal anything that can help his family in this lawsuit that they are trying to pursue.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like almost these enemies to lovers because he makes his distaste for Julia known pretty immediately, but they obviously start falling for each other, and you kind of see this dynamic between them change over the book.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you also see Julia and her brother adjust to a completely new life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's very like gossip girl, prep school type vibes.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And while Liam is like this golden child who can fit in anywhere, Julia is victim to bullying, a lot of teasing, and so you kind of have your heart out for her as she's also adjusting to this new environment that's a completely different world than her small town in Nebraska.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So not beating around the bush, I gave Trustfall 4.5 stars.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't give a five because Better Than the Movies and Nothing Like the Movies are still my two favorite books from Lynn Painter.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And those are five-star reads for me.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So for something to get five stars for me, I have to have like the insane, the same enjoyment level I did while reading Better Than the Movies and its sequel.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this was this was a close second, but it didn't just get there just yet for me.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I gave it 4.5.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I am very excited about the new Goodreads feature of how you can do quarter stars and half stars.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So honestly, if I didn't have that feature, I might have given Trustfall a five stars.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I can have a little bit more discretion with how I'm writing books, I gave it that 4.5.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll get into my few little critiques or qualms with the book that were very, very minor towards the end of this interview that deducted that half a star for me.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I really want to get into the main reasons I loved this book.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was the setting.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I live in Los Angeles, and this book made me just want to go to New York in the fall with the sole purpose to fall in love.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the perfect autumn book, and fall is my favorite season, so maybe that's why I loved it so much.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you could just picture everything, the imagery so vividly, so beautifully, thinking about falling in New York falling in love in New York with all the changing leaves.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a rom-com coated setting, and such a great book for this time of year.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So overall, just loved it.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I like was planning a trip to New York in my head as I was reading this book.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am longing for an East Coast volleyball dealing with all the heat waves in LA right now.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, besides the setting itself, I really love Lynn Painter books a lot of times because of the dual POVs that she does.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what I feel differentiates her from other authors is she really gives a lot of time and energy to also her MMC point of view as well.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like a lot of times we see maybe like 70% of the girls' point of view and then maybe like 30% of the boy's point of view, but it really feels like 50-50 in the Lynn Painter book.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I love a Lynn Painter book boyfriend.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think she always has kind of like this boy who's very good at being charismatic but also super sarcastic and can easily make the FMC flustered.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that formula every time.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I will eat it up every time.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Damien is no exception.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I actually started tabbing this book.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't tabbed a book in a long time, and then when going back and preparing for this review, I realized that everything I tabbed was actually related to some of like to what he said or like a scene where he's doing this like major confession.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so funny because I actually met Lynn Painter this time last year, it was actually my one year anniversary.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I got like the camera roll memory when she was on her fake skating book tour, and she said, like during the panel that I went to see her at that she loves writing the guy's point of view, and then her sons told her that the guy's point of view is basically a girl's point of view with just a lot more cursing.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought that was absolutely hilarious, but I think it really just goes to show that like Lynn Painter men are truly just the epitome of like a man written by a woman, they're just so good to me.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is sometimes hard to see, like, going into like a 25-year-old mindset and looking and reading a teenager.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there's no way a 17-year-old boy is having these deep of emotional thoughts.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can barely find a man my age who is thinking like this.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wrap my mind around like a teenager thinking like this, but it's still fun to read.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I really liked about reading Damien's point of view is we really got to see his character arc through seeing all these chapters from his mind because he's actually quite mean to Julia for like the first half of the book, and he acknowledges that.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so seeing his character arc and change in him soften up to her and also come to his own understandings was really cool to see.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, I was tabbing my favorite scenes, and my first note that I actually tabbed was kind of that first breakthrough where you start to see him kind of caring for her, and it's very early on in the book.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of their first conversations, and she basically says, calls herself stupid for needing a tutor.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Don't call yourself stupid.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like so affirmative when he says that.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then he almost like slaps himself like on the wrist for like caring about her and being like, I don't care what she thinks, I don't care like her self-perception of herself, I want her gone.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you see him kind of going back and forth with having these little small moments of being good to her and then immediately like wanting to go back and be mean and revert to this very hostile like environment and attitude towards her.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that was that for that some reason that scene that line just stood out to me when he was so quickly like, don't call yourself stupid.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a very big um actar family.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually doing like a reread right now, getting ready for the new book, and I'm on a court of Mr.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Fury.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm behind, but I just had gone over a scene today where Faira had something said something mean about herself, and Reese was like very quick to shut it down, and it was very similar vibes to that, but obviously in a contemporary romance setting.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if you like vibes like those, I definitely think you'll like this book.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And to show kind of more about what I really liked about Damien and his inner monologue, I have some quotes tabbed here that I'm going to read through.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Those were my like favorite quotes and things from the book.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't want to hear this part, I will give the timestamp where you can skip to.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna break down some of my favorite lines and moments from him, hopefully convincing you to read the book.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't already, or if you have, just bangirl with me over him.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, not giving too much context, because like I said, I don't want to be a spoiler, but this was kind of as you can see, about halfway, a little over halfway through the book, where there was a really big breakthrough between Damien and Julia, and he really wants to talk to her, and he's basically like, I wasn't one to beg, but God help me, I was begging.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened with us yesterday, something that felt important enough to make me beg.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love seeing when a guy is desperate to talk to his girl, to check in on her, to have that vibe check.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I really liked a lot of his quotes and mindset during this chapter.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is chapter 32.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Damien throughout the book basically calls himself like a rebel, a rebel without a cause.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: He very much loves having like this a-hole mentality, and you definitely see that in the beginning of the book when he's especially like condescending to Julia.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, he always calls her like honey in his monologue, like in his inner monologue, not to her face.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, and when you're reading that, you're like, Oh my gosh, you're so mean, don't say that.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: But also call her honey again.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of conflicted feelings when reading about him, and this is, of course, more than halfway through the book, so they're on relatively good terms at this point.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she was saying, You lied, you actually are a nice guy.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, No, I was telling the absolute truth.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, pulling out my phone to pay for the snacks.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still not a nice guy, but being nice to you is my new favorite hobby.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we see a lot of tropes in the book world where it's like he's mean to everyone but her.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think Damien is mean to everyone, he can be hostile to people, but you do see him have like best friends in the book and people he cares about.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it definitely kind of falls in line with that trope where he doesn't really care about the other girls or other people, but he cares about her, and so that's always fun to see as a romance reader as well.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is the most spoiler-esque quote of them all.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you wanted to like skip anything, this is basically when they have like this really big breakthrough in the third act, and he is confessing to her how much he feels for her, and he goes, I'm obsessed with how funny you are, and the way you tried to find accessible poetry for your boomer bodega friend.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: You leash trained your cat and you eat French fries every day.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are the most interesting person I know, and the breath of fresh air that I need to breathe, but all my life I felt suffocated.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I might have effed up being too much of a coward to tell you about Uncle Remy, but you can't give up on us because I was an idiot.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he's so desperate at this point, he's laying basically all his cards at her feet, hoping that she gives him a chance.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's such like a real raw moment that I love the read.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I reread that paragraph like five times before moving on.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this last quote is towards the end where we're kind of in our happily ever after.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout the book, he calls Julia Nebraska.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you watch My Life with the Walter Boys, it's very similar to how Jackie's nickname is New York.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why we love calling people the states where we're from, but that is something that happens in romance books.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he basically always drunciates that she's different from the Gardenwood girls, and it kind of comes into the spun live towards the end.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, You're not a gardenwood girl.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said, lowering my face because I need to kiss her.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, she asked.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Her eyes heavy lit it as she rose through her tiptoes.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: You think I'm a Springfield girl, that is.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I think you're just my girl.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought it was just so cute.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, You're not a Springfield girl, you're not a Gardenwood girl, you're just my girl.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just, like I said, I love dialogue and banter in a Lynn Painter book.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And these two, Julia and Damien, definitely haven't nailed.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, I don't want to just talk about Damien as much as I was obsessed with his quotes.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I really did love Julia as well.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because I really resonated with her.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm someone who has anxiety, I am socially anxious, and Julia is also someone who has anxiety.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about it in the book, she talks about how she feels that people don't truly understand the magnitude of things in her mind.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think anyone who's had anxiety could definitely resonate with what she's saying.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think she really goes through like the typical experience of being a high school girl and wanting to fit in.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're a girl in high school right now or you're older and reading, she's easy to resonate with because I think everyone, even if it's not to the level she's experienced, has gone through similar socially anxious emotions, and you're really just rooting for her the whole time, especially because she's consistently compared to her twin brother Liam, who fits in so well.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: That you want her to succeed and you want her to find this love and you want her to find her place and figure out what her future is.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's just someone who's so easy to root for.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do love about Lynn Painter characters is that at the end of the day, they are 16, 17, 18 years old.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So while we might have some amateur thinking on the guy side, I think that all of her characters also do act like teenagers and can be a little bit petty.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Julia's ex-boyfriend, Will, who we learned pretty early on in the book, did her dirty.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: She has a couple run-ins with him later on, and she basically admits that she is petty and that she wants to make him feel bad, and she wants to make him jealous.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe when you're an adult, you're like, oh no, you just need to move on from that.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also part of you that's like, hell yeah, I want that to happen for you too.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just such like a funny little moment that I think really humanizes the characters, and we can all empathize with because I think we've all been in those type of situations, whether platonic, romantically.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's also something funny about her characters, too, is that they can't have these perfect traits about them.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, they are imperfect teenagers.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Julia is that fun rom-com lead where she has her quirks like she loves red, her cat that she leash trained, she's obsessed with french fries, she loves literature, she basically repeats Shakespeare when she's anxious to calm herself down.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So she has those little quirks that I think every romance reader like loves and looks for in a lead.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: She also has a spark in her that you see come out a few times in the book, especially when she's comfortable or she's at a breaking point.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think my one critique is I wish I saw more of that spark towards the end of the book with some of her decisions of how she decided to end out her senior year, but I don't want to get too much into it because then it truly becomes like a spoiler-heavy review.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if anyone wants to personally talk about it with me in my comments or DMs, they are open for that discussion of how Julia senior year ended.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I interview authors, I always ask them what their favorite scene is, if they had to pitch their book using one scene.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And because Lynn Painter is not here for me to interview her, manifesting that that one day happens, I'm going to share my personal favorite scenes.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, once again, a little bit spoilery if you want to skip over to the next section, but also I don't think this is really gonna ruin any plot or spoilers for the book.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the first scene I call Beckett's party scene.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Beckett is Damien's best friend, and Julia has like a little bit of acquaintance with him.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't call it a friendship fully, but he invites her to his party, they're both there, and while they're in a hallway, Coco, who's a mean girl, comes up to Damien and Julian and basically tries to kind of like get in their face, make Julia uncomfortable, and it's like, Damien, I need you.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go for a chat.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Julia kind of actually like gets a backbone and she's like, sorry, Coco, you can't, because we actually have to have a very important conversation right now.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it pulls Damien into a bedroom, and of course, whispers like a lot of rumors later on, but just like the moment in the room, nothing happens.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're just there in the dark, chilling in the bedroom.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And because it's dark, there's almost like a little bit of vulnerability to it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: They can't see each other, they're just lying to each next to each other on the bed, they're talking, there's a lot of flirting going on.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like a lot of times in the book, Damien will flirt or mess with Julia and it makes her like flustered or angry.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the times where she's actually kind of like going bar for bar with him, and the chemistry is really good, and it's such a vulnerable energy tension-filled moment that if you like those kind of secret, quiet, stolen away moments that make you just have all the butterflies, that is the scene for you.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: The second scene I call the park scene where basically Julia gets really good news about her math scores, and to celebrate her and Damien walk to their favorite park together to kind of just celebrate and hang out, and she takes him to all her favorite spots in New York that she's learned so far.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: So her favorite deli, her favorite bakery, they get her favorite cake, they're sharing the cake, and they're just having this true moment where I think they're finally seeing each other past this like a tutor pupil relationship, and they actually have a romantic moment that's almost this major breakthrough, and then like Julia breaks like out of this bubble and freaks out and leaves, and it leaves to this like next section of the book that's really monumental for them.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I just loved I wasn't seeing the setting of New York because I said as I said in the beginning of this review, I just loved how fall and autumn coated it was, but also then just kind of finally seeing them have this like happy moment that wasn't angst-filled or filled with all this like meanness and rudeness and sarcasm.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was truly like a moment where they were celebrating this win together because she got the scores and she couldn't have done it without him.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, talking about some structure things of the book for pacing, this book I believe is 410 pages.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, I really don't like my contemporary romances to go past like 420 pages.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if it's over 400 pages, I'm like, what are we doing here?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you gotta keep me in, keep me in.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we were in the upper half of my limit here, but I will say that this book flew by for me.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I read it in two days and I absolutely loved it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was truly trying to take my time with it because I knew when I was done, I was going to be done, but I felt like I easily could have finished it in a day if I wanted to.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't care about the limp as sometimes I do with other books that are over 400 pages.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do have the Barnes Noble edition that comes with a bonus chapter at the end.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: At the oh books upside down.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I do have the Barnes Noble edition that comes with a bonus chapter at the end, which is actually just an alternative meat cute from one of the earlier drafts.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I will say I like the original meat cute in here.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I like how the final draft of the book played out, but it was fun to see another way it could have happened.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do I think it's the best bonus chapter of all the Lynn Painter books?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, I don't think so.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad that this wasn't like in the final cut, but it was fun to see another way this scene could have played out and kind of that initial chemistry that there was between Julia and Damien, because in their very, very first Meet Cute for the first couple of minutes, he actually doesn't know who she is, and he does have this attraction towards her.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's pronounced even more in this alternative Meet Cute.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then as for the ending, without getting into too many spoilers, it's I don't want to say open-ended because it is a happily ever after, but they are basically seniors about to go to college, and you know for the most part where they're going to go, how it's going to play out.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will say I was a little bummed with Damien's ending, but I think it was realistic for his family dynamic without giving away kind of what happens.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't have too many console fit.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I will say that if Lynn Painter wanted to do what she did with Better Than the Movies and give us a sequel where we see how the couple is faring in college, I think you could easily do that with this book.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: That it's open-ended enough and there's enough where another storyline could happen, which I really appreciate, even though we do have that nice happily ever after.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't mind reading a trustful sequel and seeing how these two handle college life.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, I gave this book 4.5 stars, and one of the reasons that I didn't give it five, I have a few small, minor, minor itty, itty, itty bitty critiques that honestly are not that big a deal.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the one thing that I like felt like got, I don't want to say annoying, but slightly dinged book for me is that Julia has curly hair, and it is constantly mentioned how she has this curly hair, and it's so different from all the girls who have like these pristine blowouts at Gardenwood Academy.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it almost got to a point where I was like, oh my gosh, how many times are we gonna mention this girl's curly hair?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember in better than the movies, Liz also has curly hair, and it was a point in the book, but I felt like it was almost too cliche where I was like, Oh, the new girl who gets made fun of has curly hair, ha ha ha, and she doesn't know how to tame it.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost giving princess diaries, which does play into kind of like the early 2000s feel of this book, but I felt that we could die we could have dyed down on the curly hair trope, if that makes sense.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like such a minor detail, but it's just something you notice when you keep reading it over and over again.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, oh my gosh, I get it.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: This girl has curly hair, and Damien comes to like love her curly hair and thinks it's like the most beautiful thing in the world and reminds him of this pretty woman, which I'm glad to see because your partner should love your natural hair.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't love that the hair thing was as big as it was, and maybe coming from someone who has curly hair and has constantly seized media where curly hair makes someone an outsider.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was just it was just a trope that I was like, oh my gosh, I'm seeing this like in my face again.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said, very, very, very, very minor ding.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then this was just more funny.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's like a ding to my rating, but I'm just including it in this section.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is we get some hardcore small town Nebraska propaganda in this book.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Lynn Painter's from Nebraska, so obviously she's gonna ride for her state, which I can respect.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I just thought it was so funny that Julia, yes, she's still learning New York and the lay of the land, but basically says how she prefers like the food and restaurants in Nebraska to the food and restaurants in New York City.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just crazy to be because New York is like the cap food capital of the world.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you mean the Thai places in Nebraska are better than the Thai places in New York?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally Thai town.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there are some bomb Thai food places in Nebraska, don't get me wrong.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it was just funny seeing this comparison and argument that the food in Nebraska was better than the food in in New York.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I love a small town romance, I can I understand the small town propaganda, but it was just it was just a funny thing to see.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also I think why I gave it 4.5 stars.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to remember, I'm coming in with this with the mindset of someone who is 25 years old.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So some I'm gonna look at certain life issues and debates differently than a 17-year-old is going to.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes I was looking at it and I was like, oh my gosh, this is like so juvenile, or oh, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then I remembered it's a YA romance and it's made for teenagers.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like if I would have read this book even in college or high school, like this easily would have been five stars, and so because of that, I have to take some of like the conflict with a grain of salt because obviously I'm going to approach certain topics differently in my 20s than a teenager was, and this book necessarily wasn't meant written for my demographic, and so going in with that mind, I have to respect that, and I don't think that's why it's a huge thing on the book, but in my personal reading experience, it's also one of the reasons that I took away a little bit of the points, but I feel like that kind of can go across the board with a lot of YA books and romances.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: In spite of those two and a half, three points, depending on what you count the food point to be, I still love this book.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was still one of my favorite reads of 2026, and I really did enjoy this Lynn Painter book.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love Lynn Painter.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: It will trust fall, will go in my pumpkin basket with pride.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so throughout this interview, I kind of want to do a little segment because I really want to still start working into Hollywood adaptations with my interviews, with my content, because that was the initial plan behind the main chapter was to look at the fusion between like books and book talk and what's being done in Hollywood.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, uh you know, the book Trustfall just came out, so there's no news of if it will be adapted, if it'll get an adaptation, but a lot of Lynn Painter books are getting adaptations.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have Better Than the Movies coming out with Netflix.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: We saw that fake skeining was picked up for adaptation, and I feel like I could easily see Trustfall as an adaptation, maybe because the imagery was so vivid in my mind, but I could definitely see this.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will say that I don't think Trustfall, if it ever was adapted, would be represented well as a movie.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think this would be such a good prep school type show.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like prep school shows are really having their moment right now.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everyone loved Gossip Girl, and now we have like Max and Hall and a lot of like K dramas and Asian dramas with these prep school themes that I think that this would really go seamlessly into what we are watching and wanting in this moment.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: This book is easily expandable to make more content for TV.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we have like a lot of side characters here who are super lovable.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have Liam, who's Julia's twin, and Beckett, who is Damien's best friend.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just kind of there in the book, but I think they could be easily expanded into television.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be a more ensemble type format, similar to what we're seeing in off campus.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if any Hollywood developers out there are watching this and seeing Trustfall, I'm telling you now, make it a series, don't make it a TV show.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think you could get a good two, three seasons out of it, even if you make the characters younger, because they're seniors right now.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if you started them as juniors, make every season a semester, you can get a good TV show right there.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is all I have to say on Trustfall.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, 4.5 stars.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Love this book, lovelin' painter manifesting the day that I can have her on this show.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: It will happen one way or another.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to figure it out.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if you loved this book review, let me know.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to see more book reviews, let me know.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is very experimental for me.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to figure out other ways I can make more content.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's anything else you want to see in book reviews, let me know.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I can be sure to incorporate it in hopefully another one.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking of content and exciting news, I am competing in the top host competition where I would have the opportunity to get main chapter produced under iHeartRadio for six episodes.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Also win a cash prize, which I could sync back into main chapter, helping this podcast grow and make it bigger than it is now.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love doing this project and getting to bond with readers, bond with authors, and I want to keep going.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it would mean the world for me if you vote for me.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: My link will be down in the description.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can vote for free once a day, or you can also vote via donations.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: One dollar equals one vote.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the proceeds help the Ryan Foundation, which helps children's hospitals.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Very important to me because I was actually a hospital kid.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've had five collapsed lungs and spinal fusion.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: So children's health care of Atlanta saw me a lot in my adolescence.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much for watching.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I am going back to interviews next week.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have a fun, spooky, Halloween themed book coming up for you.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: So be sure to tune in and have a great week, my book Butterflies.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next time.