tl;dr: interesting twist on a ‘Jesse’s Girl’ type plot
The Story:
The plot of this book surprised me, because I envisioned that the chase would be the bulk of it, and while that’s sort of true, it’s not really. Aiden is your average asshole, who sees a pretty girl and decides he has to have her. He sets in motion a pretty awful plan to get a hooker to seduce her boyfriend, who happens to be his roommate. But this plot only covers the first few chapters. Once he finally seems to be making inroads into getting into her pants, Aster stuns him by revealing that she spoke to the hooker and she knows everything.
But before this big revelation, Aiden has been trying harder than he’s ever tried to get a girl. He remarks to himself a few times how strange it is that he can’t seem to let go of the chase, even if she doesn’t seem totally interested. Normally, he doesn’t continue chasing a girl that doesn’t seem interested in his advances, but something about Aster spurs him on. The flip side to that is that he actually begins to see her as a person instead of an object, and then, well, there’s feelings involved.
Technical Elements:
Over all, I thought that the writing was very good. There was a strange choice for three chapters to be one word each, after Aster’s revelation. (“What.” “The.” “F**k.”) Once those chapters hit, the book begins to go back and forth between Aster and Aiden, which was not wholly necessary, but it did help to get a more complete picture of their relationship.
I liked a lot of the juvenile offender subplots, about how sometimes you can’t rely on friends and family, and about how not every relationship has a happy ending. Some of the plot points were incredibly poignant and sad, particularly Aster’s relationship with her estranged father. Something I was really touched by was near the end, when Aiden wants to provide something for Aster that he’s never had growing up and he felt like it was this huge gesture, while to Aster those things were empty promises. They both make realizations about each other and their shared delinquent pasts that were moving and heartfelt.
Final Thoughts:
My Roommate’s Girl is a newish subgenre known as New Adult. This is basically a bridge between YA and adult fiction, where it focuses on college-age kids. I so wish this had been a marketable genre when I was in college, because of lot of the issues that someone in the midst of that part of life are addressed in these types of books. Careers, becoming an adult, being responsible, and identity are major parts of this and other similar stories. It can also be offputting to more mature readers who are so done with that phase of life and want to read about people sharing their own struggles, which is definitely valid. I felt like this book was interesting and hot enough to overcome that hurdle for me, even if stuff like careers and college are far back in my rearview mirror.
Doesn’t look like you can find this book at the library yet, but keep an eye out here.
Looking for other New Adult books with sexy times? Check out Jenny Trout’s Choosing You.