Roomies

From subway to Broadway to HEA. A modern love story in all its thrill, hilarity, and uncertainty.

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1. ROOMIES by Christina Lauren

SYNOPSIS

Marriages of convenience are so... inconvenient.

For months Holland Bakker has invented excuses to descend into the subway station near her apartment, drawn to the captivating music performed by her street musician crush. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, fate steps in one night in the form of a drunken attacker. Calvin Mcloughlin rescues her but quickly disappears when the police start asking questions.

Using the only resource she has to pay the brilliant musician back, Holland gets Calvin an audition with her uncle, Broadway’s hottest musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he’s in the country illegally, his student visa having expired years ago.

Seeing that her uncle needs Calvin as much as Calvin needs him, a wild idea takes hold of her. Impulsively, she marries the Irishman, her infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves and Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway—in the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting—will Holland and Calvin realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?

BOOK REVIEW

Do you ever find yourself deeply immersed in something so precious that the notion of time loses any meaning in your life, while it all lasts at least? For me personally, this started with the very first page of Roomies by Christina Lauren, and there was never a dull moment reading it. It’s truly hard to find a book with a perfect pace and flow, but Roomies had it all, plus a fantastic banter and insane chemistry between two absolutely relatable and swoon-worthy main characters.

“Maybe the reason I can’t write about fictional life is because I haven’t actually lived.”

Holland Bakker spoke to me on a level that was rarely reached by other female characters I’ve come across with. She was a clueless kind of the most adorable girl/woman who had no idea about the most generic things in life. She went from admiring a talented busker at a New York subway station from a distance to managing to exchange a few words and glances with him to recklessly marrying him for reasons beyond common understanding. Well, that’s not a full truth though. Even though Holland did want to ‘give back’ to her favourite uncle by giving him a chance to get a talented musician in his famous musical, it was not like she ended up worse off. From the first glance, Holls married a complete stranger, but she had no idea she had been writing Holland/Hot Busker fanfiction in her head for months prior to the main event.

“I’ve never met anyone who loved my playing enough to want to put a ring on it.”

Calvin McLoughlin turned out to be exactly what was lacking in Holland’s life. He was one of those illegal dreamers who kept believing and waiting for a chance to prove his talent and his worth. And when Broadway—the dream of his—was finally within the reach, the poor decisions from being young and blind came biting his sexy ass. But Holland Bakker—rescue ranger, Holland Bakker—when there’s danger… A beautiful girl, so selfless despite her being the one who needed help to start moving toward her own dream…

Calvin told me to do something with my brain, but how? Threads of ideas appear on the edge and are gone as soon as my fingers settle on the keys. There's no connective tissue to string them together, no skeleton to hold them up. I want to live my life with the intensity I see on the stage up there, want to feel passionate about something in the same way. But what if it never happens for me?

I was a Calvin and Holland stan. Both individually (although sometimes, I desperately wanted to strangle the stupid man) and as a couple.

As it was mentioned earlier, Holland had some difficulties figuring out her rather ‘complicated but not really’ life. She kept putting everyone’s interests first and was essentially a pleaser. Until her marriage to Calvin who was such a cinnamon roll asking Holls what she liked and wanted, as well as hinting at all the ways she could start making her wishes come true and encouraging her to step out of her comfort zone at last. She did a lot of growing up in Roomies, and I was beyond happy to witness that.

Calvin who knew from the start what he wanted and was so passionate about it had a completely different set of issues he needed to work on. But despite the fact that he was oftentimes self-absorbed and relishing in the comfort of lies, I could understand his motives, and his character felt real by being flawed (but not on the verge of unforgivably evil).

The development of the relationship between Holland and Calvin was unbelievably smooth. No insta-love kind of a thing that I despise so much. No. It was natural, not forced at all. And it was filled with undeniable sexual tension but more importantly—sweetness and excitement of getting to know a person of great interest.

In conclusion, Roomies was a very addicting fun read with a perfect amount of everything that matters in a good romance novel. Highly recommend!

PS. Shoutout of the day goes to Robert and Jeff Okai for being awesome people.