Reviews - And They Were Roommates

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

1.15k reviews for:

Cheesy title, interesting premise. I thought I would love it, but I ended up not liking it that much. The problem may have been that I was not the target audience.

The MMC was an anxious mess which I could relate to and I also appreciated the trans representation, the struggles Charlie was going through felt real.

However I didn’t understand how or why Charlie was drawn to Jesper, because Jesper was a self-centered, annoying guy imo. I felt no chemistry between them up until the end. Maybe if we would’ve gotten a look into Jesper’s POV or his thoughts to see his internal struggles that would’ve made me understand him or sympathized with him more.

Also there were too many side plots happening for me to get really invested in any of them and that made the situations not that tense/serious. STRIP, getting into the top 5, his struggles with transfering and his struggles with being trans, his relationships with his mom and Delilah, the training arc with Xavier, his new friendship with Luis and Blaze. In the end not every story line had a satisfying ending.

Loved the side characters though, would’ve loved to see more of Xavier, Blaze and Robby!!!

There were also some unrealistic things, like Delilah and Charlie’s friendship was weird. They call each other best friends but hardly ever talk? or hang out? Also Jesper becoming famous and voted as the sexiest poet at 16 with a Rupi Kaur/tumblr ah poetry.

This book had so much potential so I will definitely read future novels the author will publish!

booksavant's review against another edition

2.0

The book had some highlights but overall the characters were shallow and stupid. Not naive the way kids their age tend to be. Genuinely stupid and oblivious. The mc kept having these outbursts where he was extremely mean unprovoked and refused to listen to the love interest whatsoever. He also seemed bent on seeing the worst in the guy to the point where it distorted reality. It's fine to have an unreliable narrator but you can't make their obliviousness that obvious or they come off as self absorbed and really fucking annoying. I liked the characters in some moments but they mostly infuriated me. Also the plot doesn't make that much sense. I would be happy to ignore it if the characters made up for it but alas they did not.