Review: The Roommate by Rosie Danan

Title: The Roommate
Author: Rosie Danan
Publisher: Berkley

Rating: 5/5 Stars
Paperback, 336 Pages
Published September 2020

Summary: 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. 

I first heard of this book because so many of our blogging friends were talking about it, and I was immediately intrigued. I didn't even know much about the book at first -- I just knew that they were all raving that it was the latest rom-com that was making them all swoon. Our good friend Chloe at The Elven Warrior even described it as "eyeball-meltingly sexy," so I obviously knew I needed to pick it up. Needless to say, I ended up absolutely adoring this book just as much as my other friends did. So without further ado, let's get into my review! Just as a warning, there are some minor spoilers sprinkled throughout, but I marked all of the major ones.

As the summary explains, Clara flies all the way from the East Coast to Hollywood on a whim to chase the man that she always thought she was meant to be with. But when she finally gets there, it turns out that he's actually heading on tour with his mediocre band, so Clara is left sharing his house with the man that he rented it out to. But what she comes to learn is that this random guy has an interesting backstory -- one that could completely decimate Clara's social standing in all of her upper-society socialite circles back home. But spending time with Josh may also unlock parts of Clara that she hadn't ever given much thought to...and together, her and Josh decide to set out on a mission to ensure that women everywhere find themselves having better and more meaningful sex.

I absolutely *loved* this book. As I mentioned, when I first picked it up, I didn't know much about the summary itself. I had a hunch that romantic feelings were going to stir up between Josh and Clara, but I did not expect Josh to be an actual porn star. So as soon as I found that out, I was floored -- and immediately interested. This book made me feel everything -- I laughed, gasped, cried, swooned, and even groaned internally when the characters were letting their inner thoughts get in the way of ~*true love*~. But through it all, it's safe to say that I was addicted and couldn't put this book down. It was seriously such a delight.

A really important aspect of this book that I really appreciated was the way it centers around women not being ashamed when it comes to wanting to seek pleasure, and their partners feeling confident and secure enough to actively invest in learning how to give it to them. Clara starts out like many women -- ashamed and embarrassed by sex, unsure of how to ask for what they want -- or even what to ask for -- and the idea of living with a porn star just seems like a disaster scenario. But over time, she learns through several methods (heh) that there is no shame in sex, nor in enjoying it, and it doesn't have to be a taboo topic that people are afraid to talk about, and women's pleasure shouldn't be this big mystery that nobody has the map to. This is such an incredibly sex-positive book, and I loved every second of reading it and seeing those ideas shaped in the story! 

(Spoilers in this paragraph -- skip to the next one to avoid them!) I thought the ending of the book was incredibly sweet and it made my heart flutter all over the place. Especially that epilogue -- finding out that they're engaged truly satisfied my hopeless romantic heart. And it was really sweet (and yes, sexy) to see how Josh and Clara both learned to come to terms with what they wanted for themselves and they then didn't feel apologetic about it. This book definitely gave me one of the most satisfying happily ever afters that I've ever read, and I adored it.

Overall, I absolutely loved THE ROOMMATE and I will absolutely be recommending it to any and all friends (including you!) who are looking for a, yes, definitely eyeball-meltingly sexy read that champions women feeling confident in their bodies and learning to love themselves as well as their partners learning how to love them as well. This was such a swoon-worthy, hilarious, sex-positive book, and if it isn't on your TBR already, then I think that it definitely should be!