Review: "If We Were a Movie" by Zakiya N. Jamal

If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal
Published April 2025 via HarperTeen
★★★

Movies aren't really Rochelle's thing, but anything that will bulk up her Wharton application—such as work experience—is absolutely her thing. When a position opens up at the local Black-owned cinema, she'll take it...even if it means working with her once-upon-a-friend, now her low-key nemesis.

Overall, this feels like a really solid debut. These are by and large likeable characters, both the main cast and the secondary characters (I enjoyed the twins' roles in particular), and it's nice to see Rochelle gradually loosen her death grip on All Academics, All the Time. There's also this nice moment: Mentally, I reprimand myself for assuming their pronouns and make the switch in my brain (loc. 604*). It's such a small thing, but it feels wonderfully realistic; I've read way too many books where the author tries to signal inclusivity by having the main character get all pronouns correct immediately, and it's much more realistic to see someone stumble and course-correct.

There's a small mystery baked into the plot, and I would have liked to see a bit more from it. I don't want to go into too much detail in a review, but the stakes felt lower than they should have been—I think I was expecting something to happen to the memorabilia, and there was sort of a dearth of suspects, limiting any whodunnit sense. I also would have liked to see some more specifics about the movies (and history) relevant to the cinema; I'm not any kind of film buff (at the time of writing it has been—if I remember correctly—almost a year and a half since I sat through a full movie; cannot ask my partner for a more exact date or he will suggest that we watch a movie) and know very little about any realms of film, including Black cinema, so it might have been nice to learn a bit more.

But: The romance is cute, the setting is interesting, and props to parents (fictional and real) who fundamentally just want their kids to be happy. A win in my book!

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.