Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

Steam Rating: 🍆🍆🍆🍆/5

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for gifting me a review copy of The Roommate by Rosie Danan.

Our heroine, Clara, moves to LA chasing a childhood crush and looking to escape the grip of her family back on the East Coast. As she arrives, her crush drops the bomb that he’s going on tour with his band and has rented his room out.

Josh is the opposite of Clara. Where she is hyper-organized and likes to be in control, Josh is laid-back and relaxed. It’s hard to tell you too much about the actual story without giving away some pretty critical plot twists and surprises. But while I liked their relationship and the way each of them grew throughout the book, I didn’t totally buy Clara’s background or family situation. It was eluded to constantly but we didn’t start to get any real information until 70% of the way into the book, which really bugged me.

I listened to the last half of the book on audiobook, which is narrated by Brittany Pressley and Teddy Hamilton so naturally, that was pretty great. Both narrators are in my top five, with Brittany also performing the Well Met series, Oona Out of Order, the American Royals series, The Sun Down Motel, The Lost Night, Paris is Always a Good Idea and so many more. And if you’ve listened to The Friend Zone, Kiss My Cupcake, Meet Cute etc then Teddy’s voice will be very familiar too! The audiobook comes in at just under 11 hours and you can grab a copy here, or get the physical book via the button below.

Synopsis:

House Rules:
Do your own dishes
Knock before entering the bathroom
Never look up your roommate online

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too much to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet...

Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.