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A review by rekams
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
funny
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I never DNF anything, if I read a page of a book, I will read the rest of the book. This is one of the very few books that made this approach worth it, as I really struggled to warm up to the characters in the first 20% of the book. I’m not saying it went from a one star to five star read, but I am glad I stuck it out as it ended up being a fairly good book, much better than the initial chapters would suggest.
The main positives were the characters, particularly Leon. While I’ve read about many female protagonists like Tiffy, he was a breath of fresh air compared to your average romance novel male lead. I found his narrative style annoying at first but as the book went on, it seemed to fit him more and more and it also made the dual POV narrative actually feel like two distinct people, which I find many authors in the genre struggle with. The rest of the characters were also well fleshed out and I was quite surprised to find that none of them have their own, separate books, as they had a fair bit more going on than usual side characters tend to and I would have been quite keen to find out more about them.
That being said, I really wasn’t sure about the author’s handling of past traumatic experiences that were part of certain characters’ backstories and I’m also quite surprised that that was even part of the book, since I’ve not seen it anywhere that there’s major trigger warnings for this book…
Overall a fun read, but I’m not likely to pick it back up any time soon.
The main positives were the characters, particularly Leon. While I’ve read about many female protagonists like Tiffy, he was a breath of fresh air compared to your average romance novel male lead. I found his narrative style annoying at first but as the book went on, it seemed to fit him more and more and it also made the dual POV narrative actually feel like two distinct people, which I find many authors in the genre struggle with. The rest of the characters were also well fleshed out and I was quite surprised to find that none of them have their own, separate books, as they had a fair bit more going on than usual side characters tend to and I would have been quite keen to find out more about them.
That being said, I really wasn’t sure about the author’s handling of past traumatic experiences that were part of certain characters’ backstories and I’m also quite surprised that that was even part of the book, since I’ve not seen it anywhere that there’s major trigger warnings for this book…
Overall a fun read, but I’m not likely to pick it back up any time soon.