Roommate by Sarina Bowen

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Title: Roommate
Author: Sarina Bowen
Published by: Indie
Release Date: January 12, 2021
Format: Audio ALC
Narrator: Teddy Hamilton, Stephen Dexter
Length: 9 hours and 5 minutes
Genres: Romance, LGBT, Contemporary
Source: the author
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Winter, Lenoreo's 2021 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Wanted: One roommate to share a 3-bedroom house, split the rent, and ideally not be the guy I can’t stop thinking about.

I’m a man with too many secrets, so the last thing I need is a new roommate with a sexy smile and blue eyes that see right through me. Eight years ago, Roderick left town after high school. We’re not friends. I owe him nothing. But back then, I let one of my secrets slip, and he’s the only one who noticed.

Part of me knows I should run far, far away. But the other part wants him to come upstairs and spend the night. But if I let him in, I could lose everything.

Seeking: A room to rent in town. I’m tidy, have no pets, and I will feed you homemade bread.

I should probably add: Gay AF, and has no filter. It’s no wonder my new landlord is so wary of me.

A smarter man would ignore those hot glances from Kieran Shipley. The broody lumberjack wants more from me than another homemade pretzel, but if I push my luck, I’ll end up back on the street.

Too bad I’ve never been smart with my heart ...

My Review:

I received a free copy through the author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

4 stars — I always enjoy books by Ms. Bowen, but I think my expectations for these boys flavoured my enjoyment a bit…and I *might* have enjoyed it more reading than listening, but that’s a personal thing.

I always enjoy Teddy Hamilton’s narration — he has great emotion, good pacing and a sense of humour that comes across.  His pacing was a bit fast at a few moments, no idea why that was…or if it was just me.  This is my first full listen of Stephen Dexter, and I enjoyed him, but I found his pacing to be off at times.  There were just certain sections where it felt like the sentences were running together, and I sometimes had a really hard time telling the difference between thoughts and dialogue.  I was also only meh on his Roderick voice.  But that’s personal taste.

I do love this world, and I was intrigued by both Kieran and Roderick from earlier works by Ms. Bowen…though I will say it was mostly Kieran that I had preconceptions about that perhaps tainted my reading.  I guess I just didn’t expect him to be so taciturn…he was a mystery to figure out for me.  Maybe it’s because he’s so unique.  He’s suuuuuuper closed off, and so very unhappy with his life and his family.  I knew he was quiet, but I guess I wasn’t expecting so much resentment.  And it’s not that I don’t get it, but I guess I just had a bit harder time connecting with him.  I was surprised how his non-romantic story progressed in some ways, it ended up showing the reader just how much of an unreliable narrator he could be because some of his family ended up surprising me.

Rod had his own hurdles to leap over, and most of them seemed centered on his sense of self-worth.  He was an interesting character too, b/c he was so unapologetic in some ways (mostly about being gay), but it covered up this deep need to be loved and wanted and needed.  It’s not that we don’t all have that desire, but his was intrinsic to his character.  It was hard to listen to him put himself down in so many ways.

They were pretty fun together — I liked how they rapidly moved from awkward to friends to more to complicated…we really got so much in their relationship.  There were times where I would start to get frustrated with one or the other, and then they would pull it together and make things right.  It was satisfying in that way.

The flavour of Vermont, and the secondary characters both really add to this book.  While it is 100% not necessary to have read any of the other books in this world, you really do get a lot of fun things if you’re already a fan.

In the end I really enjoyed it, but something was missing to put it in the top tier of SB books for me.  I might need to read it read it, maybe the things I wasn’t enjoying about the narration affected my overall enjoyment as well.