BOOK REVIEW: The American Roommate Experient

Rosie Graham has a problem. A few, actually. She just quit her well paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer. She hasn’t told her family and now has terrible writer’s block. Then, the ceiling of her New York apartment literally crumbles on her. Luckily, she has her best friend Lina’s spare key while she’s out of town. But Rosie doesn’t know that Lina has already lent her apartment to her cousin Lucas, who Rosie has been stalking—for lack of a better word—on Instagram for the last few months. Lucas seems intent on coming to her rescue like a Spanish knight in shining armor. Only this one strolls around the place in a towel, has a distracting grin, and an irresistible accent. Oh, and he cooks.

Lucas offers to let Rosie stay with him, at least until she can find some affordable temporary housing. And then he proposes an outrageous experiment to bring back her literary muse and meet her deadline: He’ll take her on a series of experimental dates meant to jump-start her romantic inspiration. Rosie has nothing to lose. Her silly, online crush is totally under control—but Lucas’s time in New York has an expiration date, and six weeks may not be enough, for either her or her deadline.

Spoiler Free:

With a rating of 4.03 on Goodreads and a rating of 4.2 on Amazon Elena Armas’s new follow-up book was definitely highly-anticipated to her readers from The Spanish Love Deception (TSLD) as well as new readers she has acquired through word of mouth and BookTok.

When Rosie’s, Catalina Martin’s best friend, ceiling quite literally caves in to where she can see up her neighbor Mr. Brown’s robe, she decides to use her emergency spare key for Lina’s apartment knowing she’s away on her honeymoon. But later that night, after carting up her large blue Ikea bag and locking the door behind her, a strange man bangs on her door she discovers Lina had previously lent her apartment to Lucas Martin, Catalina’s cousin. The exact one Rosie had been stalking online for the last few months. Lucas offers Rosie stay until she can find temporary housing, but having quit her job months before to become a full-time writer and produce her second novel, money and inspiration is hard to come by. That is until Lucas proposes a romantic experiment consisting of four “fake” dates, but both Lucas and her deadline has a expiration date and she’s not sure which one she dreads more.

Having read and love TSLD, I was excited to finally be able to read some more words carefully crafted by Elena Armas. I loved Rosie’s directness and confidence in TSLD and looked forward to how her love story would form around her as a character. Written in two POV, Rosie’s and Lucas’s, the reader is given a wider insight into the story that unfold within the 6-week time period. As much as I would love to rave about this piece, I feel like it fell short of its potential. It’s important when reading contemporary romance or romance comedy type books to keep expectations in check. Simply know what kind of story you’re getting into, but still with that in mind, I felt let down and like certain aspects didn’t align. I really didn’t get involved until about 70% of the way through and really from them on the story moves at a fast pace. Sadly, I was disappointed in the end, but still entertained at some level.

Spoilers Full:

Alright here come my spoilers.

Seriously, nothing is off limits here.

You sure?

Did you read it first?

Okay I’m going in… three…two…one…

Like I said in my non-spoilers section, I was disappointed with this piece. I’m not sure if TSLD set a level in which its hard to reach or because so many other factors, but I’m giving it a 3.75 for a reason, so let’s get into it.

Within the grand scheme of the series, we are introduced to Rosie within the first scene of TSLD. Within this scene she is funny, confident, sarcastic and adds a extra layer into the interaction between Lina and Aaron that without it, would probably fall flat. I mean the repeating what she says to him like he can’t hear, is someone confident and knows the game they’re playing. Within TARE, Rosie is instantly put on the defense believing someone is breaking into the house and her reactions to it, ie. calling 911 and not really talking to the woman and in the end hangs up without needing the police, doesn’t feel authentic to the type of character we know previously. She was created as confident and strong-willed yet throughout this book she’s insecure, can’t speak up for herself, and lacks the confidence she had. For example, the scene when she talks to the landlord as they stand in her apartment looking at the gaping hole, she takes his attitude and only gives concessions, not a badass response I’d imagine she would. Further, the moments in which Lina is in, her character as well doesn’t align with the girl we grew to know in the previous book. In TSLD, she's often high maintenance, annoying, and almost, as I would imagine it, bouncing off the walls. In which in TARE, she is a lot calmer, to herself, and less of a spitfire.

Further, this piece is folded with tropes. And tropes are good, especially in contemporary/ comedy romances. It’s things readers look for, yet this one had a lot. Close proximity, Slow-burn, Fake-dating, Time-Restraint, Woman falls first, A small peak of Forbidden Love, Best friend’s cousin (really brother relationship), Injury, Afraid to commit, and probably some more. And specifically with the slow-burn trope, that Armas is known for in TSLD, I’m not sure it’s a slow-burn that happens in TARE. I would more so say it’s simply teasing readers of the sexual intimacies that happen in the last third of the book. Mainly because the characters quickly have feelings towards each other, yet don’t tell one another. A slow-burn is more so feelings slowly developing over a period of time, not keeping the two characters that already have feelings from admitting them.

I also want to note that Lucas’s story with his accident and simply his life before leaving Spain and traveling is very vague and not described or shown well. I kept wanting to learn more about who Lucas was before his accident. The reader learns he was a professional surfer, yet what life did he live, what kind of man was he. He really just tells Rosie that he’s changed, and the conversation about his accident comes late in the book. Why did he decide to travel the whole US? And in the end, all his problems take a backseat to the love story and almost like Armas knew she needed to tie the loose ends, he tells Rosie how much better he’s doing, how he’s going to therapy and he’s decided to go to culinary school in New York. It goes from 0-100. I really wished a lot more focus on his character development would’ve been taken into account.

Lastly, this piece throws in a fake-dating trope pretty late into the book. In a situation such as TSLD it worked and felt natural, within this storyline, it felt forced and felt like a missed opportunity. Had Rosie gone on shitty dates with guys searching for inspiration, the jealous tension between Rosie and Lucas could've been built stronger. Also, Rosie could identify that her new inspiration isn’t coming from those dates, but the smaller things she does with Lucas. Then these things coinciding with one another could result in Lucas wanting to take her out on a date to show her what one should be like. It would be a natural progression instead of a forced fake-dating trope.

In the end this piece was entertaining at parts but not one I would want to pick up again. There simply wasn’t enough focus on charter development and more focus put on creating tropes that publishers know sell.

Elena Armas

Debut author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The Spanish Love Deception, Elena Armas, has released her next highly anticipated follow-up book The American Roommate Experient that follows the story of Lina’s best friend Rosie. Armas is a recent full-time Spanish writer with the hopes to create stories that make her reader’s hearts skip a beat or two.