ellareads2 's review for:

And They Were Roommates by Page Powars

4.0

adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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If you want a cozy, wholesome read, then AND THEY WERE ROOMATES is the perfect book for you. Page Powers just might be a new favorite author; he really takes the roomates trope and made it his own between these two boys Charlie and Jasper. While this story is light in that it is a YA romance but I thought it beautifully tackled issues issues that teens deal with such as managing friendship, pressure to perform well academically, and coming to be proud of your identity. One downside of this book was not anything bad about the book itself but more about my relation to the book is that reading through some of Charlie's thought processes were so frustrating. But then I remembered I am an adult now and my post-frontal lobe development was struggling to see Charlie's reasoning. I have not read YA in awhile so I think this makes sense and actually reflects well on Powers and he captured the teenage mind very well! This book serves as such beautiful representation of being a trans, specifically trans masc/man, and I think this is something that is essential to the plot of the story and not just an extra detail mentioned on the side.

The way Jasper felt so much guilt about liking his crush's "brother" was so cute and then the way he was I still love you even after Charlie came out to him AHHHH all the feels.

The character of P.M. also wasn't very developed and honestly I feel like his character could have been done without in the book but I did enjoy the friendship Charlie made with Xavier as well as the rest of the love letter writing club.