Hello, my wonderlandians! Thank you for joining me on this amazing weekend. I hope yours is going awesome. Hopefully, you didn’t follow many white rabbits down to many holes.

 

I know I have gone down the YouTube one too many nights this week. I should have been sleeping but you know how addicting YouTube can get late at night. Your eyes are calling and demanding for sleeping, but your eyes are like no way we are staying up all night. Only to then later pass out not knowing then the time you actually went to sleep. The story of my life. Anyway, I hope you guys are having a great weekend so far.

(Side note I am trying something new with this blog post. Tell me if you like. Trying a new format if you will. Leave me a comment.) 

Today, I am going to review a book called Roomies by Sara Zarr, Tara Altebrando. I got this book on a whim when I was scrolling throw overdrive. It really liked the cover and the plot of it sounded really interesting. I can say I am so glad that picked it up. Now I listened to the audio-book version of this book. Everything about it was fantastic.

Let’s start off with the cover.

 

This in and of itself is a work of art! I love it. The vibrant color of the green in the Roomies text. Then your eye is drawn to the two different colors of the shared room. Now I do have one thing to nitpick…sorry…I really wish that pick of the other girl’s room meshed with the green in the rooms text. I think that would have made for an even striking cover. This could only be my opinion. Either which way this is a cover that I really enjoy.

Synopsis 

The countdown to college has begun.

When Elizabeth receives her freshman-year roommate assignment at the beginning of summer, she shoots off an email to coordinate the basics: TV, microwave, mini-fridge. She can’t wait to escape her New Jersey beach town, and her mom, and start life over in California.

That first message comes as a surprise to Lauren in San Francisco; she had requested a single. But if Lauren’s learned anything from being the oldest of six, it’s that you can’t always get what you want, especially when what you want is privacy.

Soon the girls are e-mailing back and forth, sharing secrets even though they’ve never met. With childhood friendships and family relationships strained by change, it suddenly seems that the only people Elizabeth and Lauren can rely on are the complicated new boys in their lives…and each other.

With humor and heart, Sara Zarr, National Book Award finalist for Story of a Girl, and Tara Altebrando, acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Happiness, join forces for a novel about that time after high school when everything feels like it’s ending just as it’s beginning.

Reasons I found this book so appealing. 

1. I never went to a traditional college.
2. This gave me an insight as to what it would have been like if I would have gone out of state to college instead of doing it online.
3. I really liked the fact that the authors were able to pull a duel P.O.V so well. The story just flowed.
4. The narrators. They both did a fantastic job!
5. I connected really well with one or more of the main characters. Our personalities are really different but I found it really easy to connect.
6. Not heavily romance driven

Reasons I found this book so frustrating

1. THERE IS NO SQUEAL! I REPEAT THERE IS NO SQUEAL. I have so many questions about how this book ended. I feel like this could have been an awesome college series. Unfortunately, there was only one book.
2. It is so sad that there is only one book.
3. Did I mention that there is only one book? Well, there is.

Let’s talk about EB or Elizabeth.

Now with this character, I really did connect with her on the basis that her family is a little messed up. My family, I have a mom and my step-dad who I love dearly. He is my dad even though biologically we’re not related. I feel like Elizabeth has a lot of issues surrounding her family and a lot to do with her father.I connected to this on a very deep level. I have some issues with my own biological father, that I still feel to this day haven’t really been hashed out.

I found this character to be very likable for most of the story and then towards the end of the book I thought she was being really childish after the big incident happens throughout the book. I kind of find myself relating that because I can act childish if I’m fighting with somebody so I found a connection there as well.

Another level of diversity is the fact her dad left her mom because he was gay. He never really looked back when he left. This messed the mom up and EB.

Overall, her personality and mine while there are some similarities I find that she is a lot more outgoing than I am. She is extroverted where I am introverted. I really like the fact that the authors created a character that while my personality is different from hers I was able to make a connection. I feel like there are a lot of books out there like you want to connect with the characters but you don’t a lot of the times I find myself connecting with 1 character. At the same time, a lot of books are told from 1 perspective and not told from a dual perspective. So they got this right on the money.

Now the person who voiced Elizabeth character I thought she did an amazing job I thought the paste that she brought out was amazing. And I thought overall that her voice really complimented the other narrator. There are a lot of times where I find you have one really good narrator and one that’s kind of so-so and it’s the other narrator job to carry the other one. I did not find this at all I really looked forward to each person’s part of the book.

Let’s talk about Lauren next

Her character I found myself a really relating to. She grew up in a house of 8 people. All of her siblings are a lot younger than her. This mimics my life perfectly period instead of 8 people I have a family of 6. Which consists of my mom, my dad, me, my two sisters, and my brother. my two youngest siblings are at best 13 years younger than me. So while Lauren feels like she’s not really a sibling to her brothers and sister she’s more of a third parent because it is such that huge age gap. This is something that I was really able to relate to because growing up being so much older than my two youngest siblings I always did feel like a third parent to them compared to an older sister. Now, this is completely different than how it is with me and my older younger sister. She is about 4 years younger than me or 5 depending on what time of the year we’re in. So I and she grew up together. She is also really close to her family as I am to mine. 

Yeah, Lauren is the studious goody-two-shoes kind of a person. She’s also really outdated with her technology. Now while in school I wasn’t exactly the most studious of student I was known around the school as the school study to shows. One of the things that I really liked was the fact that Lauren really wasn’t concerned with losing her virginity. She was so grounded in who she was. But that is definitely something that I connected to. Because for me one thing that I’ve always really liked about myself was that I have a very strict moral compass and I don’t let that break. So for me, that was a really cool experience because I found a really deep connection to this character. Even more so than I did with Elizabeth.  I also really like the fact the authors put Lauren to an interracial relationship for Lauren. It added a bit of diversity to the book.

Now the narrator who read for Lauren also has narrated a couple of other books that I’ve listened to so I knew for a fact that I really like her voice. As I said up above I really liked her voice narrating with the other woman.

I really enjoyed this book and I it will definitely be on my re-read list.

Get the book here!

Amazon – http://bit.ly/roomiesbook

Audiobook – http://bit.ly/roomiesaudiobook

Thank you all for joining me in our small part of Wonderland. Don’t forget to feed the unicorns on your way out. They grant wishes.

Until next time

Much love

Ashten