A review by maya_b
Roomies by Tara Altebrando, Sara Zarr

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This was pretty good. An easy fast read with topics of friendship, family and romance, and how things change at a certain point.

It’s not really my experience, since I’ve never shared a dorm room with anyone (or a room generally since I was, like, 8 and stopped sharing a room with my brother), only apartments, and also where I live it’s not common to get to know whom you live with in advance, so none of this communication thing has actually ever been a thing for me, but that didn’t change that I totally could relate to some of the stuff. Mostly the loosing friends, how will it go, what will it feel like to be away from family and all these things. Not so much the romance/partner stuff because I never cared. But it of course didn’t matter, because I don’t think you actually have to have any of these experiences to enjoy the book. 

I had some trouble in the beginning, and there were moments in between where I felt like stuff didn’t go in a good direction, but the story always turned around to be good again, and in the end I just really enjoyed it. 

It was really nice how the communication between Elizabeth and Lauren went, but I also really appreciated how all of the other characters communicated and interacted as well. Yeah, there was trouble, but whenever I thought “this is going wrong” or was annoyed with how little communication there was or I was certain that some things would happen just for even more drama in this book, it didn’t end like I thought and it kind of worked.

Was there too little communication? Yeah, totally, at times, but then they always kind of got it just at the right time to not be to late, I think. Was there a lot of drama? Yeah, absolutely, but the amount of it kinda worked and it didn’t feel like too much, just a lot, and I think that’s alright. Were there problems that could have been avoided? Yeah, 100%, but they were always kind of solved in the end, and it worked.

 

I didn’t like some stuff, especially towards the end of the book, and I didn’t like some characters, but they did feel like real characters, not flat, and I could understand where everyone was coming from, and even if I didn’t like them, it felt like they belonged in the story and I wouldn’t want them gone. I wish some stuff would have been a little different

(for example I really didn’t like how angry EB was at Lauren)

but I also totally understand why it didn’t and I wouldn’t say it was wrong. It was just not to my personal preferences.

Also, this might sound stupid, but I really appreciated that there was no attempted sexual assault in this book. (Not that I would have expected any, but in every recent contemporary book I read, there was at least one scene, so I was kind of afraid it would happen at any moment, but it didn’t, and I really really appreciate that this story didn’t feel the need for a scene like that.) 

In conclusion: a very enjoyable book, even if some stuff wasn’t for me and I couldn’t relate to everything, and even though I didn’t like all the characters, but it worked and I had fun.