The American Roommate Experiment

Written By Linda Malek

The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas

Reviewed by Tanya
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Thank you @simonschusteruk for this copy!

If you loved #TheSpanishLoveDeception then you’ll enjoy this one but unfortunately it wasn’t for me. I had high hopes for this book but I was left feeling quite disappointed and flat. I just finished the book for the sake of finishing.

Rosie, Lina’s best friend quits her job to pursue her writing career. She has already published a book but is lacking inspiration for her second book.

Lucas, Lina’s cousin from Spain is travelling around the US. You don’t know much about him apart from the fact that he’s run away from a trauma.

You have the fake dating trope, which normally comes across quite exciting but it just felt so bland. Lucas just seemed too good to be true. Like he came across too perfect. Rosie in the Spanish love deception and Rosie in the American roommate experiment seemed like two different Rosies.

I know it’s a slow burn but it was waaaaay to slow! From both POVs you can tell they’re both yearning for each other yet none of them….Lucas especially who seems so confident and can tell that Rosie fancies him has made a move? Mad.

It just felt very similar to her previous book, and honestly a little cringe to read. I really had to force myself to read the book despite wanting to love it. Even Lina came across really annoying. Overall I just found it a little boring and a drag.

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

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The Gone and the Forgotten