The Roommate by Rosie Danan

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Title: The Roommate
Author: Rosie Danan
Published by: Penguin Audio
Release Date: September 15, 2020
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Brittany Pressley, Teddy Hamilton
Length: 10 hours and 46 minutes
Genres: Romantic Comedy, Romance, Contemporary
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:

Blurb:

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 much 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.

My Review:

4.5 stars — There were parts of this story that just sucked me in and delighted me!  But, as with all my books lately, I did find my mind wandering.  I’m thinking it’s more indicative of my state right now than the books I’m reading though.  Just having a hard time concentrating I guess.

I saw this story recommended quite a few times, so I went in with pretty high expectations.  That can be a good or bad thing, and in this case it was mostly good, though I can’t help but wonder if my high expectations are what is having me round down instead of up, you know?

This was a seriously unique premise.  I loved the exploration of what it means to have a career in the sex industry, and the stigma associated with that.  I loved the exploration of women’s pleasure, and how the entertainment industry is seriously lacking in something for us.

Josh was just a complete contradiction in so many ways.  He was obviously very in touch with his sexual side, and craved the physical…which usually would give me playboy vibes.  But he wasn’t actually like that at all…or least not what I’m usually fed.  He was sweet, caring, super empowering and supportive, hilarious, adorable…you just wanted to hug him and let him do wicked things to you at the same time.

I was worried that I wouldn’t fall in love with Clara, b/c she can be so rigid and uptight.  But underneath all that conditioning from her family, she was such a positive force who appreciated people.  I mean, I did want to smack her in one crucial moment, but I guess I still sort of understood what she was fighting against (years of conditioning).  In the end I loved how she grew and flourished under Josh’s love, and how she found herself while doing something totally alien to her.

I LOVED Josh’s almost tutorials with Clara.  At first I was anxious about it, because I was waiting for the hurt.  And while that did come, their relationship developed into so much more than I was expecting, and in a different order or something than I was expecting.  You know, you start to anticipate how things are going to go, and while this one did have some formula to it, it also skirted that formula in quite a few moments.

Holy fuck was this book hot too.  There is something seriously hot about someone who is all about the sex teaching someone else to appreciate their own body and the pleasure they deserve.  Not sure if that makes sense, but seriously.

I really appreciated the secondary story with Aunt Jill, and even Toni to a degree.

Teddy Hamilton and Brittany Pressley were fantastic in this one.  I feel like I recognize Ms. Pressley’s voice, and not from the other book I listened to her narrate, so now that’s driving me insane.  They both gave the perfect amount of heat and emotion and humour when needed.

So yeah.  Definitely a hit, but I kind of wish I’d been in a better mood to listen to it, because I think it got shortchanged.  Maybe I’ll reread it some day!