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A review by ruthypoo2
Under One Roof by Ali Hazelwood
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This is a cute romcom novella with a resentful roommates to lovers trope. I really did enjoy the female main character, Mara. She's a woman finishing up education for a doctoral degree in engineering and starting to find her way in the industry of science. Mara does a nice job representing nerdy women everywhere who are just starting to come into their own while dealing with the burden put on them by years of higher education: financial debt, finding a job in your chosen profession, and a new separation of distance from university friends who've become a highly valued emotional support system over the past few years.
The author, Ali Hazelwood, writes fun, and sometimes self-deprecating, internal dialogue for the MC, with lots of playful and snarky banter between Mara and her roommate/love interest, Liam, as well as friends chatter with her university besties, Sadie and Hannah. I wish that Mara had been written as a more confident women seeing as she's someone who's described as having excelled in her educational pursuits and is at the point of having earned her doctorate. This kind of accomplishment is not made by a scatterbrained, overwrought individual, or at least that's not how I'd like an intelligent, successful female to be portrayed.
The set up of the story is done well and for the most part doesn't require too much of a stretch of what could happen in the real world, and the semi-slow burn of the romance was pretty cute. With that said, the description of sexual encounters is explicit and very often I just skipped forward because it doesn't bring value to the story of Mara and Liam's relationship other than to let you know they're very horny. But as a couple, they could be very cute when hanging out together and getting to know each other.
I listened to the audiobook version and enjoyed the narrator, Emma Wilder.
NOTE: After reading the entire STEMinist romcom series, all the female main characters are small-framed, petite women, and their love interests are wealthy, educated, professionally successful men that stand over 6 feet tall, are described as intensely attractive, and have extremely large penises. It would've been nice if there'd been some physical and ethnic diversity amongst all the characters because by the third book it starts feeling like the same couple in a different setting, with only the last book in the series, Below Zero, offering a serious and introspective look into the STEM-related education and career of the female main character, and the hard work she had to do in order to achieve her educational and career goals. In the first two books, the STEM field was more so a component of the FMC's background, a commonality with her best friends, and perhaps a bridge to explain how she meets or gets to know her future love interest.
The author, Ali Hazelwood, writes fun, and sometimes self-deprecating, internal dialogue for the MC, with lots of playful and snarky banter between Mara and her roommate/love interest, Liam, as well as friends chatter with her university besties, Sadie and Hannah. I wish that Mara had been written as a more confident women seeing as she's someone who's described as having excelled in her educational pursuits and is at the point of having earned her doctorate. This kind of accomplishment is not made by a scatterbrained, overwrought individual, or at least that's not how I'd like an intelligent, successful female to be portrayed.
The set up of the story is done well and for the most part doesn't require too much of a stretch of what could happen in the real world, and the semi-slow burn of the romance was pretty cute. With that said, the description of sexual encounters is explicit and very often I just skipped forward because it doesn't bring value to the story of Mara and Liam's relationship other than to let you know they're very horny. But as a couple, they could be very cute when hanging out together and getting to know each other.
I listened to the audiobook version and enjoyed the narrator, Emma Wilder.
NOTE: After reading the entire STEMinist romcom series, all the female main characters are small-framed, petite women, and their love interests are wealthy, educated, professionally successful men that stand over 6 feet tall, are described as intensely attractive, and have extremely large penises. It would've been nice if there'd been some physical and ethnic diversity amongst all the characters because by the third book it starts feeling like the same couple in a different setting, with only the last book in the series, Below Zero, offering a serious and introspective look into the STEM-related education and career of the female main character, and the hard work she had to do in order to achieve her educational and career goals. In the first two books, the STEM field was more so a component of the FMC's background, a commonality with her best friends, and perhaps a bridge to explain how she meets or gets to know her future love interest.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content