Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Roomies by Christina Lauren | Book Review


Reading Group: 18+

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Synopses: From subway to Broadway to happily ever after. Modern love in all its thrill, hilarity, and uncertainty has never been so compulsively readable as in New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren’s (Beautiful Bastard, Dating You / Hating You) new romance.

Marriages of convenience are so...inconvenient. 

For months Holland Bakker has invented excuses to descend into the subway station near her apartment, drawn to the captivating music performed by her street musician crush. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, fate steps in one night in the form of a drunken attacker. Calvin Mcloughlin rescues her, but quickly disappears when the police start asking questions.

Using the only resource she has to pay the brilliant musician back, Holland gets Calvin an audition with her uncle, Broadway’s hottest musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he’s in the country illegally, his student visa having expired years ago.

Seeing that her uncle needs Calvin as much as Calvin needs him, a wild idea takes hold of her. Impulsively, she marries the Irishman, her infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves and Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway—in the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting—will Holland and Calvin to realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?


Cover: This cover has a skyline of New York City, which is where the story takes place.  There is one building with two lights on so maybe that is supposed to symbolize Holland and Calvin living in the apartment, but Holland is in her room and Calvin is in the living room.  Also, in the title the two O's are actually wedding bands overlaying each other.

My Review: I'm not going to lie to you guys I was a little skeptical about reading this book.  Only because as much as I did enjoy Dating You/Hating You I didn't enjoy that as much as The Beautiful Series or the Wild Seasons and I was afraid that it wouldn't live up.  That being said, I ended up loving this book.  I enjoyed it more than Dating You/Hating You, but not as much as Beautiful Player or Sweet Filthy Boy  (because I could read about Will and Hanna or Ansel and Mia until the end of time - Maybe someday I'll do a post rating CLo books)
I really enjoyed Holland's character.  She agreed to marry Calvin selflessly to help him and to help her uncle.  In fact, at the beginning it seemed like not only did she not really gain from the situation, but she was actually putting herself out because now she had to open her home to a total stranger, even though she was the one who brought up the idea to him.  However, in the end, she does gain a lot from the experience because she learns so much about herself.  She and Calvin go through rough patches that any couple who jumps in head first could go through - ex-girlfriends being brought up or not kneeing exactly how long your partner knew about your existence - but they have the added stress of being legally married and having to convince the government that it isn't a hoax.  Through all of this Holland is finally able to take the front seat in her own life, she figures out who her true friends are and that taking risks doesn't mean losing who she is.  She needed to take the jump and fall a couple times in order to finally figure out what she wanted with her life.  It was also just cute and funny to watch two people go about their relationship in the opposite way most people do.
Also, I was very excited when Calvin gave Holland a nickname.  I absolutely love that all of the boys come up with nicknames for the girls in CLo's books.  It's almost like it's their 'thing' and I love seeing what they come up with.
The one criticism I had was that I needed one more chapter or epilogue.  I just felt like the story could have gone on a little bit longer, and I don't think I am alone in that thinking so hopefully there is a sequel or novella or even chapters posted on CLo's blog that will continue the story a little bit.  I hope if there is a novella it mirrors Beautiful Bitch in the way that there's a story going continuously throughout it, but there are also flashbacks that can fill in the gaps like how Holland explains everything to her family or if they have another wedding, so that we can get a couple short stories within the main story.


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