A review by cuppa_t
Three Rooms by Jo Hamya

informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

 A young woman (left unnamed) journeys through her life after graduating while struggling with the financial crisis that follows after Brexit, from a pretty cushty job as a research assistant at Oxford University to the harsh reality of being overworked and underpaid while paying £80 a week to sleep on a strangers sofa-bed. 

The one good thing this book did was assure me that many people have been here; desperate to find any job that pays a decent wage that doesn't make you want to tear your hair out. Hamya also does a pretty decent job of enclosing both sides of any argument into her prose, but due to this, the book felt more like a collection of essays that had been re-packaged into fiction to make it easier to sell.

The book is incredibly slow, solely character-based (possibly caused by the fact that it felt very autobiographical) with zero plot to help move anything along. The protagonist is unlikeable; while going through both good times and bad, she ruins good times for herself by running them through the societal commentary machine and seemingly almost desperate to feel hard done by, resulting in her believing there is absolutely nothing good going for her.

Had this been written as an autobiography or a collection of short essays, I would have liked it far more, but as it stands, it is a very short book that took me a very long time to read.