The Roommate by Rosie Danan

"Warmly funny and gorgeously sexy."—New York Times Book Review A LibraryReads Pick House Rules: Do your own dishes Knock before entering the bathroom Never look up your roommate online The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true. After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet... Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.

Dear main character, please learn to have more self-respect and to view yourself with more self-worth. Loser-jackasses can look like they're fine to date when you're desperate, so maybe try working on improving yourself instead of wanting to settle with whatever person comes along.

(Probably 2.5 stars, rounding down?) I was intrigued by the premise here but the writing/plot were just not as strong as I wanted them to be, unfortunately. The whole big thing about Clara's family being upper-class/socialites with a scandalous history was really underdeveloped - a lot of showing, not telling, and it never really goes anywhere. I don't think either of her parents ever appears on-page, and the book skips over any sort of reveal/confrontation with Clara's family and straight to a happy holiday dinner a couple of years later with both families, which seemed like a real cop-out after it was mentioned so often.

I also felt like both leads were really flat/underdeveloped, unfortunately. I wanted more insight into Clara and why she would go from getting a PhD and having a job lined up to trashing all that to move across the country to live with her longtime crush. Like, what? I'm not opposed to characters making big decisions that seem out of character, but give me something to work with here. Josh didn't seem to grow or change a lot either. I was thinking about what was missing from the book this morning, and I realized that neither of the main characters have friends, really - Clara works with her aunt's PR firm, and they both talk with Naomi (mostly about the project), but that's it. There's no other characters that they really talk with or vent to or anything like that, which I think makes them come off more one-dimensional. They're either alone or with each other, basically, and there's no other facets of their personality that might be shown if they interact more with other characters.

Finally, aaaaaaahh please consult a lawyer before writing a legal subplot into your romance! So the big thing is that Clara is working on the re-election campaign for the Los Angeles district attorney. She appears to be running on some type of reform platform (I think, it's not really clear), and Josh gathers a bunch of evidence about the Big Bad Porn Company committing labor law violations (wrongful termination, sexual harassment, unsafe work environment) and refusing to hire people who've worked on Josh and Clara's project. He gives all that info to the DA, she files charges just before the election, and gets re-elected, while the company and CEO are found "guilty," and Josh goes to work for the DA as an "expert witness." Everyone's happy, right? Except that's not how any of this works! Labor law violations are not criminal offenses (for the most part, but none of these are). Refusing to hire someone because they're working with a competitor isn't nice, but it's not a crime, either. The district attorney doesn't investigate stuff like this - it'd be the state Department of Labor or maybe something federal, but sure as hell not the county DA. If the company was found "guilty" (not the term but okay), there would be fines, not jail/prison time. Expert witnesses don't work for the district attorney's office - for obvious reasons, it's a huge fucking conflict of interest, any competent defense attorney would tear them apart. Experts have to be independent so they don't torpedo their credibility. (Also expert witnesses need actual expertise in things like psychiatry/law/medicine.) She could maybe have meant a victim advocate, because DA's offices do employ those, but that's extremely different from an expert witness. None of that probably matters too much to anyone who's not an attorney, but it honestly just took me out of the last quarter or so of the book, and it wouldn't have been hard at all to run by a lawyer and change up. Just sloppy and no need for it to be.

Also, this book needed more Naomi.

WOOF. I couldn't identify with the female lead cause she's a rich white girl with poor decision making skills. JOSH HOWEVER was a great character and he's a sweet precious baby who should be protected at all costs.