American Roommate Experiment

 The American Roommate Experiment- Elena Armas

Atria/Simon and Schuster

Release Date: September 6, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: 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.

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The sequel to The Spanish Love Deception, The American Roommate Experiment is a cute rom-com about New Yorker Rosie, who quit her job as an engineer to be a full time romance writer and is now panicking over writer's block and a manuscript deadline. When the ceiling of her apartment falls in she moves into her best friend's apartment- only to find her friend's cousin Lucas is also staying there. Lucas, who Rosie has had a secret Instagram crush on for over a year. In a one bedroom apartment. This can't get awkward, right? 

Rosie is a great, realistic character- trying to keep it all together because that's what she's always done, never letting anyone see when she needs help because that's not what she does. Even when she gets annoyed at others for not asking for help she doesn't think to ask for it and is surprised when Lucas offers. She's stressed and awkward, questions her choices and rarely goes for what makes her feel good because she takes care of everyone else first. Lucas, I was disappointed in. On the surface he's a great romantic hero- has all the right moves, says all the right things. But I never felt like I knew him below the surface and that was disappointing. It was only the last 20 pages of so where his issues actually got spelled out and I wanted more development for him than that. 

This was a super slow burn; a "I'm not good enough for the person I have a crush on"; a forced proximity; fake date trope book that worked really well. Full of humor and energy, if a little slower than I'd have liked in some spots, and the only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars what that I was really hoping for more character development for Lucas. 

Definitely a book romance readers will enjoy!

I received an ARC from Atria in exchange for an honest review