Not just roommates, but bedmates (though not at the same time)! Really, what an intriguing premise! I suspect my early twenties broke self would've been tempted, if only I'd been clever enough to have thought it up.
And yet, the tantalizing premise somehow didn't translate into a riveting story for me. I'm not sure what happened here, other than maybe it wasn't quite what I was expecting.
I thought it was a story of two strangers slowly falling in love with each other thanks to their cramped quarters. And yes, that is part of the story, but it felt like it wasn't the main focus. For one thing, because Leon and Tiffy aren't at the flat at the same time, it takes quite some time before they really start to interact and eventually meet.
Instead, we spend a lot of time on side characters and side plots, with Tiffy's ex-boyfriend, her three best friends, her place of work and work drama, Leon's girlfriend, his brother, and his search for Johnny White. Phew, there's a lot going on!
In fact, the storyline around Tiffy's ex-boyfriend just went on and on. He was clearly the bad guy here, but I didn't feel scared or repulsed by him as I should've been, only annoyed. He is so overwritten that he comes across as rather cartoony, more like the caricature of a villain rather than an actual one.
I also didn't jell with the way Leon's point of view was written. He is meant to be a guy with few words, so his parts were written as sentence fragments. But it just made him feel wooden and awkward to me.
Still, there were enough cute moments and the characters are undeniably loveable, so it wasn't a terrible read or anything. I definitely had fun. But in the end, I just didn't see the magic here that everyone else did.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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