Roomies - Christina Lauren

[goodreads]

Title: Roomies
Author: Christina Lauren
Genre: Chick-lit
Rating: 4/5
# pages: Audiobook ~10hrs
Date read: August, 2020

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 to realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?


A really delightful novel about fake-romance. I loved it, and had a very hard time putting it down, even if it was completely predictable and highly unlikely.

I loved the reason behind the fake romance and the inclusion of both the theater world and the love of music in the novel. I loved Holland's family... but unfortunately not her friends (but that's okay - we weren't meant to). I loved that Holland and Calvin actually genuinely seemed to like each other - fake-romance or not. And I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall during the "get to know Holland" story-telling game :-D

The main conflict bothered me though. It could so easy have been resolved by simple communication ahead of time, but was allowed to grow into a big "thing" instead. It's not a big deal in the larger scheme of things - and they did work it out in a more mature manner than could have been feared - but it still made me subtract a star.