And They Were Roommates! | 2.3.23
Aw yeah, FORCE that proximity through SHARED RENT PAYMENTS!
I’m far enough beyond the era of making web series and watching web series and producing web series about roommates who [insert wacky but fairly repetitive situation here, probably related to Hollywood aspirations] that I can enjoy and appreciate tales of roommate shenanigans again. And thank goodness, because there’s some excellent roommate romances out there! Here are three such books.
The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary. Circumstances lead Tilly and Leon to become roommates (who share a bed!) with opposite schedules- he’s a night nurse who will only ever be there on weekdays between 9a-6p, she’ll be there after work at a publishing house and on weekends- and start to get to know each other via the post-its they leave around the flat.
An epistolary-heavy love story with dual first-person POV in strikingly different writing styles?? A heroine who publishes arts and crafts books and a hero in need of more color and whimsy in his overly sterile life? A narrative about trust, escaping toxic situations, communication, and compromise that feels nothing like compromise when you realize how much the other person has brought to your previously lifeless life?? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!!
This book was also recently adapted into a Paramount+ mini series that isn’t available in the US despite my having continued paying for Paramount+ explicitly to watch it when it first premiered on December 1. This is the first time in my life I considered using a YouTuber’s NordVPN discount code and figuring out what the hell that even means.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥 (closed door)
Roomies by Christina Lauren. Everything in Holland’s life seems like it’s in stasis, including her crush on a guy who plays beautiful music in a subway station near her NYC apartment, but it has only ever been a one-sided infatuation with no hope of becoming more. Until she’s attacked in that very subway station, only for Calvin, the handsome Irish musician himself, to come to her rescue. He disappears before the police get there, so she has no way to properly thank him until her uncle, a Broadway music director, reveals he’s looking for a new string player for his smash hit musical.
Holland tracks Calvin down and gets him an audition, which he nails, only for him to reveal that he won’t be able to accept the position in the pit for the same reason he bolted after rescuing her- he’s overstayed his student visa and is in the country illegally. What else can they do but get married? And then move in together and learn everything they can about each other to fake their whirlwind love story for immigration? And then maybe it gets less fake and even more complicated? Like when he finds out about her long-term crush and she finds out his family may know about her, but not about her?
Christina Lauren truly cannot miss, and you know I can’t say no to a forced proximity shenanigans combo about art and ambition and making it no matter what it takes.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle. Maybell is straight up not having a good time. She’s at a dead end job, her coworker just catfished her pretending to be a beautiful guy who she thought finally could be The One, and she’s just been informed her beloved Great Aunt Violet passed away. Things are looking up slightly when she learns she’s inherited her aunt’s house in the Smokies, then get bad again when said inheritance comes with a caveat: a grumpy groundskeeper named Wesley who co-inherited it with her and got to know Violet before she passed.
Things are especially weird between these two new homeowners with wildly different ideas for refreshing the dilapidated property because Wesley is the face Maybell’s former friend and coworker catfished her with, adding a surreal and painful aspect to every interaction on her end. Can the hopeless romantic dreamer Maybell provoke surly Wesley into seeing her as more than just a roadblock on the way to his solitary future? Can introverted Wesley figure out how to talk to the vibrant and persistent Maybell without snapping?
This is a super sweet, home renovation forced proximity romp all about learning new communication styles, accepting that first impressions aren’t always accurate, and coming to terms with how letting people into your life opens more doors than it closes.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books about journalists & journalism!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!