The Roommate by Rosie Danan
Published by Berkley on September 15, 2020
Pages: 336
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House Rules: Do your own dishes
Knock before entering the bathroom
Never look up your roommate online

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’m going to level with you. When I snatched up this book, all I knew was the cover was pink and there was buzz everywhere about what a feminist delight it was – enough said. The blurb is also so polite that I couldn’t have realize what I was getting into: a socialite moves in with a porn star (unbeknownst to her) after her forever-crush ghosts her because his band might get its big break. She goes on to have the best sex of her life while trying to overhaul the industry of her new flame. Is it realistic? Nope. Am I here for it? Yass gurl.

*****

Normal People by Sally Rooney
on August 28, 2018
Pages: 273
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Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

Very rarely do I read such a deeply depressing yet honest love story. This is not a romance with an HEA. At every turn, Rooney seems to twist the knife a bit more into the already bloody hearts of her MCs bringing them to new lows – while still leaving them grasping for each others love. It’s raw, emotional and I couldn’t put it down. (And then promptly gobbled up the entire first season of the Hulu show, which was simply brilliant.)

XOXO